Out of Line
by sss979
Summary: Rose makes her way through the first hallway of the Doctor's darkest secrets with an unlikely escort. Book 2 of 8.
1. Prologue

**Title: **Out of Line  
**Summary: **Rose makes her way through the first hallway of the Doctor's darkest secrets with an unlikely escort. Book 2 of 8.  
**Rating: **R  
**Warnings: **Adult situations, light implications of slash, mild violence, tasteful sex. (ie rating will increase)  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own Dr. Who. Additionally, several of the stories contained in this book have been alluded to in canon but not explicitly depicted. Some of these ideas, as referenced, are not my own although their depiction is. It is not my intention to plagiarize a story that's already been told, but to bring out the issues I'm specifically focusing on even if that was not the original writer's focus.  
**A/N:** This is intended to be the second book in an eight book series exploring the secrets and memories of the Doctor. Starting here would be rather like starting Lord of the Rings in the second installment - you can do it, but you will be a bit confused to start.  
**A word about canon:** Elements strewn throughout "strict canon" (defined by me as Classic and New TV series AND mainline Big Finish audio dramas) and "sub-canon" (books, comics, etc) are utilized, though sub-canon will not be strictly adhered to. The author assumes reader knowledge of the 2005 reboot, Series 1-6 (not 7, because I started writing before series 7 and frankly, I don't want to deal with the Skaro/Dalek mess). All references to Classic canon and Big Finish (and there will be many) will be self-explanatory.

*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X *X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*

**PROLOGUE**

**Previously...**

"Something's wrong. And I need your help."

River thought for a moment that she must be dreaming. The Doctor was here, waking her up in the middle of the night, asking her for help?

"It's happening, River. Right now, it's happening. I can feel it. So can the Tardis."

"What's happening?"

"History is happening."

*X*X*X*

"Rose! Rose, it's okay! It's okay. I've got you."

Rose stopped screaming, collapsing instead into sobs as she fell through the door and into her Doctor's arms.

"It's okay. I'm here. You're safe."

She was gasping for air as if she'd nearly run out of oxygen, locked inside of the former control room she'd wandered into. Where she'd been screaming, as if she were in excruciating pain, while he'd tried to find her down the Tardis hallways.

"We can't go back! There's no time! We have to seal it off!"

"Seal what off?"

"Doctor!" She pulled back and grabbed his shirt with both fists, eyes wide and panicked. "You have to leave him!"

Confused, he looked from her, to the empty room, back to her again. "Rose, you're dreaming."

"I am _not _dreaming!"

*X*X*X*

"Has the Tardis ever made you... hallucinate?"

The Doctor raised a brow at Rose. "No."

"Could she?"

"Probably. Actually, yes. Definitely. But no. Why?"

"When I was in that room... those flames were everywhere." She shifted uncomfortably at the memory. "I could feel - literally feel - my skin burning. It wasn't just a vision, wasn't just a dream. It hurt. A lot. And more than that, it felt like... like dying.

*X*X*X*

"I know you don't want to hurt her. But you _are_ hurting her."

The Doctor ran his hand slowly over the curves of the Tardis' structure. It warmed under his touch, immediately responsive. She couldn't talk back to him with words, but she could still communicate.

"And you would know that," he mused, watching his hand as he gently stroked her. "You would feel it. You would feel her fear and it wouldn't feel good so why would you do something masochistic? What is it you're trying to say that's worth feeling so much negative energy? And why say it to her and not me?"

*X*X*X*

"You know, it's funny," the Doctor said bitterly, watching on the scanner as the young boy whose grandfather had been a Time Lord disappeared from range of the Tardis. "They were so worried about preserving the pure Time Lord race, cross-breeding with other species was a mortal sin. Now the closest thing in existence to another Time Lord is that boy. And all he has is bits and pieces of mind and memory. He doesn't even know about Gallifrey."

Rose stood by, quiet and concerned as the Doctor tipped his head back and stared for a moment at the ceiling. "Why?" he said quietly. "Why this? Why now? I don't want to think about these things. I don't want to remember them."

*X*X*X*

"Tell me to stop," the Doctor breathed - a plea and a question at the same time. His body was already responding to Rose's in force, and he couldn't stop it without her will to force him.

"No," she gasped. "No, don't stop."

He groaned as he buried his face in her neck, giving up the fight. "You smell... amazing." She gasped, her back arching to get closer to him as he closed a hand gently over her breast. "Hot pheromones and adrenaline... That dark, sexy smell that's just you. You have no idea, Rose..."

*X*X*X*

"Doctor? Are you alright?"

The Doctor had stopped walking, and he squeezed Rose's hand before letting go and reaching up to rub his forehead. "Yeah, I'm just... Something's not right. Do you feel that?"

She stepped closer to him, watching her footing carefully on the foreign planet's uneven ground. "Feel what?"

"Must be something in the air or... No, it can't be. I've been on this planet a dozen times before and the air composition's no different from... You really can't feel that?"

*X*X*X*

"Doctor!"

It only took Rose a few seconds to realize he was unconscious.

"Oh, Doctor, please wake up. Come on..."

But whatever he'd felt, whatever it was that had sent them racing back towards the Tardis, it had taken its toll. She would have to drag him the rest of the way to safety.

*X*X*X*

"Who the hell are you?"

"Professor River Song. I'm a friend of the Doctor's."

As the woman pushed her way into the Tardis, Rose nearly fell over backwards. The strange woman who'd responded to the panic call the Tardis had sent out paid her no heed. She only knelt beside the Doctor, stroking a hand across his forehead and back through his hair.

"Oh, sweetie, what did you do to yourself this time?"

Rose nearly choked. "Sweetie? I'm sorry but where did you come from?"

"That's a very long story, and I'm afraid there isn't time to tell it. How long has it been?"

"How long has what been?"

"Since he was infected?"

"Infected with what?"

*X*X*X*

"It's called a Quiescenary," River explained quickly. "It's a very primitive consciousness of pure psyonic energy that latches onto the oldest, most powerful thing in its peripheral area and drains it dry."

"Alright so what do we do?"

River turned her attention to Rose. "We're going to have to go inside, drain its current food source and see if we can force it out of the Doctor and into the Tardis Matrix."

"Wait, what! What happens if it latches onto the Tardis?"

"The Tardis Matix is far too powerful for it to feed off of. It will be incinerated instantly the moment it tries. But it doesn't know that. It'll go after the meatiest thing in the room."

"So why isn't it going?"

"Well, right now it feels no need. It's content. It's already inside of the Doctor's brain. Why move from where it's comfortable?"

"So how do we make it uncomfortable?"

"It feeds on dormant memories. You need to wake those memories up, starve it."

"The Doctor's memories. The things he never talks about."

"Yes, that's right."

"Like his _secrets_."

"Oh yes. The scariest skeletons in the darkest closets."

Rose swallowed hard at the thought of rummaging around behind the doors the Doctor had constructed to hide his secrets. It was an invasion of his privacy on a massive scale. Could she even _do _that?

"It's not an option, Rose," River said firmly, as if sensing her hesitation. "He will die."

"But he... he trusts me."

"Yes, that's rather the point." River sighed as she sat back. "Look, I would do it myself but he wouldn't let me in. He doesn't know me yet; he doesn't recognize me. All his defenses will be raised against me. But he might recognize you."

Rose studied him for a long moment, her stomach clenching in knots as she chewed her lower lip. She had no time to think about what she was being asked to do. And even if she did, would it make any difference? She already knew she would do anything to save him. The same way she knew he would do anything for her...

"Alright," she finally answered with a deep breath. "What do I do?"


	2. Chapter One - The Lonely Boy

**CHAPTER ONE**

**The Lonely Boy**

The narrow hallway was dim, and seemed to stretch for miles. Disoriented and a bit confused, Rose could just make out the edges of the hexagonal doors, set into the wall on either side. It was like staring down one of the hallways of the Tardis - endless and grey and glowing with strange hues of blue and orange that seemed to come from nowhere. In fact, if she hadn't known better, she would swear that she was standing inside of the Tardis, staring down one of the hallways that the Doctor had warned her never to venture down.

_ "You could get lost so easily - and not just in space."_ His voice seemed to echo down the hallways as the memory came to mind - a warning she'd had every intention of heeding even before he'd spoken it. _"I don't want you getting stuck on the other side of a time wall where if you call for me, I won't even be able to hear you until ten years later."_

Taking a deep breath, she stepped closer to one of the doors, touching the cool surface lightly. The last time she'd approached such a door, when she really had been in the hallway of the Tardis, things had gone downhill fast. Half asleep and following the silent guide of an urge she didn't really understand, she'd stepped into another control room - an old control room - and then... she'd died. At least, it had felt like she was dying. She shivered at the memory of the pain and the terror of burning to death. Just an illusion, a trick of the mind. But it made her wary nonetheless of the doors in front of her.

She took a deep breath as she shook the thought away. This was not the Tardis, and there would be no miscommunication between herself and a ship that didn't understand language usage. She was inside of the Doctor's mind.

If she thought too hard about it, that thought actually scared her a bit. She still wasn't sure just how River had done this. One moment, Rose had been lying still on the grate floor of the console room, and the next, she had opened her eyes here. It was abrupt and startling, even more so than it had been when the Doctor had initiated her visit to his memory of Gallifrey. It made sense that the Doctor could invite her into his own mind, but she still wasn't really sure who River _was_, much less how she had the ability to "channel" Rose into the Doctor's head. What did that mean, anyway?

She took a deep breath as she tried to calm her own racing thoughts and focus on the task in front of her. It was a vague task: awaken the Doctor's memories. This hallway, if she had to guess, contained those memories. Which probably meant that she needed to open these doors.

_ "If there's anything you don't want me to see, just put it behind a door."_

Her own thoughts wandered as she walked slowly down the hall. Had he created all of these doors the way she had created her door while he'd been exploring her memories? The thought was mindboggling when she considered how many thousands of doors were in this hallway, stretching on until they disappeared in the shadowed distance. What could he possibly have to hide behind so many doors?

Of course, maybe he wasn't hiding. Maybe this was simply the way the mind looked to somebody else. She certainly wouldn't know what the inside of someone's mind was supposed to look like. Was this what he had seen in her mind, when he'd sifted for things that didn't belong? It didn't seem possible. He'd flipped through those memories so fast. Surely he couldn't have been opening doors that quickly...

Her thoughts trailed off as she paused in front of one of the doors and turned to face it, taking a deep breath. Now all she had to do was figure out how to open it. Easier said than done. In the Tardis, the door had opened by itself, through no effort of her own. Later, the Doctor had wondered about that. "Those doors have passwords," he'd said. "How did you get in?"

Did these doors have passwords? If so, she couldn't begin to guess what they might be. All she knew was that she needed to get inside, and there was no handle, and no panel, and no obvious way to open the door in front of her. Now what was she supposed to do?

"Open door," she tried. Maybe it was voice activated? When that didn't work, she tried again. "Door open?"  
Still nothing. For several minutes, she tried pulling and prying, searching the edges for any place where she might be able to slip her fingers in. No such luck there, either. Growing frustrated, she moved to another door and tried all of the same before finally pounding on it with her fist.

"Oi!"

The voice from somewhere behind her made her spin so fast, she nearly lost her balance. But there was no one there. Had that been the Doctor's voice? It had been so quick, she hadn't even been able to tell.

"Doctor?" she called, staring down the hallway into the darkness. There was no answer, no movement but the thin layer of mist swirling at her feet. Had that been there before? She hadn't noticed it, if it had been.

"Doctor, can you hear me?"

She turned and looked the other way, but there was nothing. No movement, no voice.

"Doctor, if you can hear me, I'm here to help. See, there's this... this thing. It's inside your head. And I need to get into these -"

She stopped as she glanced back and saw the door cracked open. Unsure of when or how it had happened, she approached slowly, and slipped her fingers into the crack, sliding it open a little further and peering inside. There was a bedroom on the other side of it, dark and shadowed. For a moment, she thought it was empty. The bed was rumpled but unoccupied, and nothing seemed to be moving. The only light came from a small, blue glowing sphere on the bedside table. A nightlight of some sort, perhaps. Drawing in a deep breath, she stepped forward.

The room was as real as any she'd ever been in. It was a child's room; she could tell by the drawings scattered about the desk. But it couldn't be a young child. Next to the few, handmade toys on the shelves, there were books. Shelves and shelves of books, written in what had to be a dozen languages at least. Most of them, she couldn't even make out letters, much less identify the language. She spent several minutes looking over the books and toys before a sound behind her made her jump.

Startled, she spun around and saw a young, blonde-haired boy - no older than five or six - standing near the window and looking at her with curiosity. Reconfiguring her shock into a smile, she waved her hand slowly in an arch. "Oh, uh... hi."

This was the Doctor. She was inside his head, wasn't she? Who else would it be? Besides, it felt like him. She couldn't pinpoint exactly why; he didn't look like the Doctor. He was pale, thin, and long-faced, with light hair and blue eyes she could see even from where she stood. But something about him was familiar and warm. The way he was looking at her - not the least bit startled by her presence but certainly curious - made her smile in spite of herself. If she had to imagine the Doctor as a child, she would've imagined him looking at her just that way.

She gestured over her shoulder, vaguely in the direction of the door. "I was just checking the uh... in the hallway..."

Raising a brow in amusement, he craned his neck to look around her, in the direction she was pointing. Hazarding a glance herself, she saw the door behind her had closed. More to the point, it looked like an ordinary bedroom door. She stared for a minute - how was she supposed to get out of here? - before his voice interrupted her thoughts.

"You're checking in the hallway for what?"

"My lost... dog?" Did they have dogs here? Rose doubted it, but there was no way she could make up a whole creature on the spot.

The kid was smirking - actually smirking - at her. She stood up a bit straighter. She knew she sounded like an idiot, but that had never stopped her from getting answers before. She hadn't exactly been expecting a six-year-old Doctor to discover her in his room in the middle of the night. This was all supposed to be a memory; she was an observer only. But he was clearly talking to her. Did that mean that there was something wrong?

"You lost your dog in my hallway?" he asked, stifling a laugh.

"That's right."

"Better go find it, then." He took a few steps closer to the bed and climbed on. The mattress creaked as he sat comfortably against the headboard. "Make sure no one sees you, though. It would be awful difficult to explain."

"Why would it?" She could think of a few reasons herself, but she was curious to see what he thought of her presence here.

"Monsters in the closet are one thing - did you know there are some places where monsters actually _live_ in closets? - but you're a fully-formed autonomic corporeality. If they see you, they'll be mad for sure."

"If who sees me?"

"My mum and dad."

"Your mum and dad are in the hallway?" She wasn't sure why, but that thought made the nervous tension in her stomach wind a little tighter. She looked back over her shoulder again.

"Not likely. It's late. They're probably in bed already."

"Right, right." Rose nodded along, as if this all made perfect sense. She was an autonomic corporeality, whatever that was. Did that mean she couldn't leave by walking back out that door? Part of her wanted to try. The other part of her didn't dare.

"Are you going to sit down?" the boy asked, studying her curiously. "Or are you just going to stand there all night?"

"Oh. Sure, I'll sit down." She approached the bed with caution and pointed to the space beside him. "Mind if I sit there?"

He shrugged. "Sit where you'd like."

"So..." She sat down with a smile. First thing was first. "I'm Rose."

"That's an unusual name."

"Is it?"

"Yes. But I like it."

Silence fell again, and she shifted uncomfortably. What did a six-year-old Time Lord like to talk about? "So um, what's your name?"

"I don't have a name yet."

She'd been so sure she already knew the answer to that question that the unexpected response completely interrupted her train of thought. "What do you mean you don't have a name?"

"Well, I suppose I do have one. I just don't know it yet."

"Oh." She studied him, her curiosity growing. "When will you learn it?"

"At the initiation ceremony, of course. You ask strange questions. What are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're certainly not Time Lord." He tipped his head as he studied her with fascination. "What did I create this time?"

She stared at him for a moment, reading his confusion, not sure how to answer. What did he _create_? Maybe it was best not to ask too many questions. But why was she here anyways? What sort of a place was this? A memory of his childhood that she herself was in? That simply wasn't possible!

"I'm a human," she answered cautiously. "I come from very far away, a planet called Earth."

His smile lit up the boy's entire face. "Oh, I love Earth!"

"Do you?" She couldn't help but smile back.

"Especially revolutionary France. Oh, but all of Earth - I think it's a wonderful place!"

She hesitated. "So you've... learned about it at school?"

The boy shook his head. "I don't go to school yet. I'm not even supposed to exist for another year and a half." He leaned forward and continued quickly, before she could interrupt to ask what he meant by that. "But I know all about Earth. I've read about it."

Rose looked at the bookshelf again, and her awe redoubled. He didn't go to school, but he could read all of that?

"Is that why you speak late second period English? I thought it was an odd choice."

If her eyes could get any wider, then in that moment, they did. "You mean you're _really _talking English right now? It's not just what I'm hearing because of some kind of... mind trick?"

The boy laughed at her shock. "You seem so surprised."

She eyed him warily, trying to absorb not only the shock of what he was telling her - and that he was able to tell her anything, for that matter - but even more, his casual attitude towards it all. Turning again to the bookshelf, her eyes lingered on a particularly thick book whose spine was scrawled with unfamiliar dashes and squiggly lines.

"How many languages do you know?"

"Only thirty-two so far."

Her jaw dropped.

"But I'm learning Ecorpatic, and that will open up the entire Second Dynasty Rexsacor language family." He glanced at her curiously. "How many languages do you know?"

"Oh, just... one."

"One?"

"Yeah, just English."

"That's silly. You should learn more."

She smiled tensely. "I'll make a note of it."

The boy smiled back, and leaned forward slightly with new curiosity about his new "corporeal creation". "So what is your favorite thing about Earth?"

She hesitated at the question. How could she narrow down everything that she loved about existence itself into one thing? "My favorite thing... That's hard."

"I like the food."

"Really?" She smiled. "Have you had it?"

"No. But I will someday!"

She had to laugh at his enthusiasm. "Yes, you certainly will."

He turned, legs crossed in front of him, and leaned forward even further, as if he were sharing a secret. "Have you ever had that thing... they call it chips?"

She chuckled wryly. "I'm from 21st century London. I could _live _on tea and chips."

"Really?" His eyes were bright. "What do they taste like?"

"Well, it depends how they're made. They might be greasy or salty or crunchy or soft..."

"What's your favorite?"

She laughed. "I don't know. I like them all. 'Specially when they're warm."

He paused for a long moment, then smiled broadly as he sat back against the headboard again, staring up at the ceiling. She followed his gaze and did a double take. All of those tiny lights above his bed - it looked like a projection, but she wasn't sure where from - were a giant map. A map of the stars and galaxies that he stared at every night as he lay in bed.

"Someday, I'm going to eat all of my meals outside," he said softly. "And I'll eat whatever I want, from all different planets, all over the universe."

Rose mimicked his grin. "Well, when you think about it, remind me that chips are on me."

He turned and looked at her as she stared up at the ceiling. Slowly, his smile fell and he spoke quietly, barely audible even in the hushed room. "You know, I've made lots of humans to talk to. But sometimes I wish you could really be real. That someday maybe I could meet you again, and you'd remember me."

She blinked, confused. A hundred questions popped up. She went with the first one that formed itself into words. "What do you mean, you've made a lot of humans?"

"Well, that's all you really are. An audio-visual representation of a fictitious mental construct. An autonomic corporeality."

"What does that mean?"

He smiled smugly. "It means you're not really real."

"Oh. Are you sure?"

"It's not a bad thing. If you _were _real, I wouldn't be allowed to talk to you."

"Oh." Sure, that made sense. Didn't it? She tried to keep her questions under wraps and not let him see how confused she was. "So why do you... create humans? Don't you have any Time Lord friends to talk to?"

"No. I'm not allowed."

"You're not allowed to have friends?"

"I'm not allowed to see anybody. And nobody's allowed to see me."  
Rose bit her lip, pieces falling together in her head. He'd been hinting at that from the very beginning of their conversation. He wasn't allowed to exist. But why not?

"So... when you said you wanted to eat outside... that's because you can't do it now? Because you have to hide?"

He smiled tightly as he looked up again. "It's just for a little while longer, though. Then it'll all be better. In just two years, I can go to initiation. And then to the Academy."

His smile was growing, until it was lighting up his whole face. She tried to smile back, but she couldn't quite manage.

"Do all kids your age have to hide like this?"

He laughed quietly. "You know, you do ask some strange questions!"

"Why? Why is that strange?"

He looked at her as if he wasn't sure what to make of her. "There aren't any other children my age."

The room faded suddenly, the world all around her shrouded in darkness as if someone had just thrown a towel over the light source. Suddenly on her feet, she spun around, startled, and she found herself face to face with a different boy, not much older, standing still with his arms at his sides. His brown hair was cut in a bowl, framing his face, and his deep eyes - his eyes were as endless as the Doctor's - were a bit wide with curiosity. He tipped his head as he watched her watching him.

"Doctor?" she asked hesitantly. This boy didn't look anything like the boy in the bedroom, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, did it?

"No," the child answered innocently. "I'm not the Doctor."

"Oh. Then uh... What are you doing inside the Doctor's head?"

She waited for an explanation, but none came. Slowly, the darkness around her receded and the hallway took shape again - blue-grey and glowing. Jarred by the sudden shift out of the room, a thousand questions still swarming in her head, she tried to categorize them quickly as the boy took a step closer to her. He was wary, as if he wasn't sure whether to trust her.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Why are you here?"

"Rose," she answered, taking an instinctive step back as he moved in a little too close. "My name is Rose. And uh... who are you?"

The boy studied her a moment more. Then, as if he'd suddenly determined she was not a threat, he gave a full, friendly smile. "Hello, Rose. I'm called the Master."


	3. Chapter Two - The Master

**CHAPTER TWO**

**The Master**

"The Master," Rose repeated, studying the boy. She wasn't entirely sure what to say. It was one thing to refer to the Doctor solely by his title. It was a credential, and one she was sure he'd earned. But "master"? Dogs had masters. Servants and slaves had masters. Of course, "master" was also, technically, a degree certificate...

"Is that really your name?" she prodded. "What your parents named you?"

He smiled knowingly, in a way that was entirely too eerie for a child. "You're human, aren't you? One of the Doctor's Earth girls?"

Rose blinked, taken aback by the question. "One of his Earth girls?"

"Well, you're not Time Lord. And he always did love playing with Earth girls."

A little indignant at the boy's casual dismissal, she stood up straighter. "Did he, now?"

"That's never been a secret." The boy looked her up and down again. "How did you get in here if you don't even know that?"

"I suppose it never came up."

"Right. It never does."

She frowned. Cheeky little thing, wasn't he? He sat down, legs crossed, on the grey floor, as if it were the most natural place in the world to take a rest.

"You humans and all the planets you populated throughout time," he continued, amused. "He found you everywhere, in all stages of evolution. But he always really liked the ones from Earth. Jo, Tegan, Charley, Sarah Jane..."

"Sarah Jane!" Rose interrupted. "I've met her!"

"Congratulations. Good that you do seem to know a few things, at least."

"Yes," she answered, somewhat indignant at his mocking tone. "As a matter of fact, I do."

She sat down hesitantly so that she wouldn't be looming over him. Maybe it would make him feel a bit more conversational and less like one-upping her.

"So... you didn't answer my question. Your name..."

"I chose my name," he answered simply. "Like the Doctor."

"Do all Time Lords choose their names?"

"No."

She tipped her head, curiously. "So why did you?"

"Because I didn't like my name."

"And the Doctor?"

The boy smiled, but didn't answer. Instead, he changed the subject abruptly. "How well do you know him?"

Caught off guard again by the blunt question, she hesitated a moment. "I've travelled with him for over two years now."

"Oh, you saw him regenerate, then!" The boy's face lit up.

"Yes," Rose answered cautiously.

"That's right! Now I remember! You were there. In the Tardis." He snickered. "You thought the Doctor was a Slitheen."

Her curiosity was growing. The boy had given his name, but who _was _he? Why was he here, in a hallway full of the Doctor's thoughts?

"The Doctor and I were friends for many years," the boy said, as if he'd heard the question in her mind. His smile grew. "A long, long time ago, we did everything together. Shared all of our secrets. Now I keep those secrets for him."

"What do you mean, you keep them?"

"These halls, these rooms." The boy leaned forward, eyes dancing. "I know what's behind every door. At least, in this section."

"There's different sections?" she asked, her eyes growing wide again.

"Of course."

She nodded slowly. How many sections, she wondered. Just how many doors were there?

"Why are you here?" the boy asked. "Nobody ever comes around here anymore. Not even the Doctor. Not for a very long time."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain, actually."

"Try."

"I'm here to help him."

"Help him to do what?"

"There's this... this thing inside here that's feeding off of secrets."

"A Quiescenary?"

Her eyes widened and she leaned in a bit. "Have you seen it?"

He chuckled. "If I had, I wouldn't be talking to you."

"What do you mean?"

He frowned as he tipped his head, studying her carefully. "A Quiescenary consumes stabilizing energy off of a cyclical regeneration of psyonic impulses in a passive or dormant state of exchange. That includes pretty much everything around us. If one had been anywhere near here, the structure wouldn't be nearly so stable."

"Oh," Rose said. Well, that made sense. Trying to recover from the fact that she knew almost nothing about what she was dealing with, she folded her hands in her lap and smiled tightly. "No, of course not. You're right."

The boy gave her a funny look. "You must be an Earth girl. Basic species identification and asset specification is year two material."

She took a deep breath. Okay, so she was being shown up by a second grader. A second grader who did that same blank Time Lord stare at her that the Doctor did, on occasion, as if he couldn't believe she didn't already know this. But there were worse things she could meet in here than a kid who seemed to know what he was talking about.

"Okay, so this thing that consumes energy from regenerations is -"

"That's not what I said," he interrupted.

Flustered, she put her hands up. "Okay, well, forget... all of that. Just how do we stop it?"

The boy shrugged. "You have to bring the Doctor here."

"Well how do I do that?"

"I don't know. How did you get here?"

"There was a woman. River. Do you know her?"

"No. Should I?"

"I don't know. I was hoping."

"Who is she?"

"She said she's a friend of the Doctor's. She helped me to get in here by being a sort of... channel."

The boy was staring at her in confusion. After a long moment of awkward silence, she sighed.

"Look, you said I have to bring him here. What do you mean? He needs to walk in this hallway somehow? Like I am?"

"He doesn't come here anymore. That's why this section of his memories remains in reserve."

"So I have to go to the other sections and find him and bring him here?"

"How should I know?" the boy laughed. "I don't even know what you're doing here."

She frowned deeply at his dismissive shrug. "You're no help at all, do you know that?"

"I'm merely a hypostatic energy expression designed to organize and classify latent psyonic signatures."

"Right. In other words, no help at all."

An eye roll, a patronizing smile, and he continued as if he were talking to a small child. "Do you know what a computer is?"

She glared back at him. "Of course I know what a computer is."

"Then think of the Doctor's brain like a hard drive. I'm an executable program, and behind these doors are files."

She tried to picture that. It made an odd sort of sense. Now the only question was, how big was the hard drive? "So when you say I have to find him, you're saying there's data written somewhere in one of these hallways that's... him?"

"No, he's not data. He's the drive."

Rose frowned. "So how do I find him?"

"I haven't seen him in centuries. I have no idea where he is."

Frustrated, Rose stood to her feet and turned to pace a few steps away, hands on her hips. Then she tipped her head back and yelled down the hallway. "Doctor!"

"You can't bring him here if he doesn't want to come," the boy answered, frowning deeply as he stood to his feet. "And it's not as if he can hear you screaming."

"He can hear me," Rose said confidently, turning to shoot a brief glare in the boy's direction. "Wherever he is, he can hear me just fine."


	4. Chapter Three - Breaking the Rules

**CHAPTER THREE  
Breaking the Rules**

River was only vaguely aware of the Tardis door opening behind her. She didn't turn to look, busying herself instead with checking the vital signs of the two unconscious figures on the control room floor. It wasn't as if there were many people who could walk in unannounced. That door didn't open without a key.

"So you decided to join me after all. I was beginning to wonder."

"Yeah..." The hesitation in his voice was almost comical. She was half expecting him to bolt right back out the door. "Although, to be perfectly honest, I _really _shouldn't be here."

She chuckled. "You're always places you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be there either."

She nodded to the other version of him on the floor, then glanced up. His eyes were locked on that previous version of himself, and he looked away just long enough to study the woman lying beside him. His eyes darkened a bit as he studied her - a shadow of sadness and loss. But he didn't move, didn't step away from the door.

"I had a very good reason for being there," he said quietly. He was trying for defiant. It might have worked better if he hadn't been wearing that concerned look.

"And you have a very good reason for being here, too. Namely, I can't do this without you."

"Yes, I know."

Still, he was close to the door, clinging to the railing as if he were ready for the world around them to start spontaneously shaking and destroy them all.

"I suspect you wouldn't be able to do it without her, either."

Reluctantly, he took his eyes off of the unconscious figures and fixed River in his gaze. "Who?"

River raised a brow, as if the question were rhetorical, and nodded to Rose's unconscious form. "Did you know she would be here?"

"I told you he wouldn't be alone."

"And I would've figured as much when I received the distress call, since you couldn't have possibly sent it yourself." She eyed him curiously, and a bit warily. "But I've never so much as heard her name."

He ignored the implied question, cutting his eyes away from her. She frowned. She knew him intimately, had heard about countless companions and planets and adventures of all his incarnations. But he had never even mentioned Rose. And she wasn't sure how she felt about the fact that his life was in the hands of a woman who was a complete stranger to River. Still, it seemed pretty obvious that he'd trusted her. And she had far better chances of success than River of being allowed to roam freely among the memories of a previous Doctor.

"Just how much of this _do _you remember, Doctor?" River asked pointedly, letting him escape the question about Rose. At least for the moment.

"Very little," he said abruptly.

"Enough to know when and where to show up when you decided to join me on this little adventure you sent me off on."

"I didn't send you off. I warned you, gave you what information I could, and told you to wait for further instructions. Which... you received in the form of a distress call that I didn't necessarily know about."

She raised a brow. "Didn't necessarily know about?" she repeated, amused.

"I told you, I don't remember most of this. And it's a good thing, too. There are very good reasons why it's against the rules to cross into your own time stream. The effects could be disastrous."

"Well, it wasn't disastrous any of the other times you did it. Entering the tomb of Rassilon, meeting Omega. And then there was that time when you managed to merge your Tardis with your _previous _Tardis in the -"

"Shut up, that was different," he interrupted, indignant at the suggestion that he had ever played fast and loose with the laws of time. She almost smiled.

"How was it?"

"Because I didn't have control over any of that, for one thing."

"Well, you don't exactly have control over this, either."

"And secondly, if anything had gone wrong, it wouldn't have been solely my responsibility to set it right!"

"Well, if anything goes wrong this time, I'll share in that responsibility."

"I'm sure you would but that's not very reassuring."

"Doctor, in case you've forgotten, there is something in your head, devouring your memories, your mind. If you want to live to become... well... _you_, then somebody needs to stop it from killing you."

"I know all that. I was the one who told _you _all that, remember?" Finally, his grip loosened on the railing and he took a small step forward. "The Quiescenary."

River paused. "So you do know what it is, then."

"Of course I know what it is."

"You know, if you'd told me that when I first asked you, it might've saved me a lot of time and research."

"I didn't know then. I know now."

"What do you mean you didn't know then?"

He ignored her, focusing instead on the still figure, lying on the Tardis floor. He closed his eyes as he drew in a deep breath, wincing slightly at some unknown discomfort.

"I can feel it," he finally said, softly.

She paused, concerned. "Could you before?"

"I don't know." He was avoiding her gaze as he opened his eyes again.

"You realize that if you keep giving me these vague, meaningless answers -"

"River, I don't know!"

She stared, as startled by that response, and his impatient tone, as she was concerned. "Doctor..."

He turned away.

"Any change in you is a change in history, in the way this all works out," she said carefully. "And the last thing I want is to unravel your history. But that thing is going to kill you if someone doesn't stop it. And, more importantly, you were also the one who told me that _you_ werethe one who stopped it."

"What if I was wrong?" he asked, low under his breath. "I also told you I don't remember much about this. And that's the truth, for what it's worth."

"Well, if it is a Quiescenary, the fact that you remember _anything _is a miracle."

"I don't, really. And even if I did, just because it _did _happen that way doesn't mean it can't be rewritten."

"And if it is, your existence and mine become paradoxical," she finished.

He looked up at her, eyes deeply colored by worry.

"I know."

He turned away, letting the argument rest.

"As long as he's unconscious, he's not interacting with you," she tried to reassure him.

"Yes, but that's not entirely true because I remember interacting with myself and that's how I know that I need to be here."

"Interacting with yourself how?"

"That part I _don't _remember, but I know that I did."

"Well, if you do remember that you were here, then clearly the universe doesn't necessarily implode and there _is _a way that we all come out of this alive. Agreed?"

He frowned at the logic. River closed her eyes.

"What do you want me to say? That it's not as dangerous as you think?"

"I don't want you to say anything. In fact, I would greatly prefer if you said nothing. Nothing at all."

"Neither of us are comfortable with this, Doctor," she continued, ignoring him. "But I'm not about to let you die and since I need you to save yourself, here we are."

He hesitated a long moment, not moving, not speaking. Then, finally, he dragged his attention away from the figures on the floor and to the Tardis console, looking it over carefully but keeping a safe distance. He'd found something with which to distract himself. It was a good thing. The nervous energy now had an outlet.

"This is before I put in the medlab software upgrade."

"So we can't monitor their life signs with the Tardis - is that what you mean?"

He was circling the console now. "How did I ever manage with such primitive equipment?"

"Doctor, we're busy."

"You're busy," he corrected, offhandedly. "I'm along for the ride. For now."

River sighed to herself. The younger he was, the more he grated on her nerves. Especially when he was thinking about something he didn't want her to know. This early in his time stream, they didn't even have the sex to vent that mutual frustration. She cracked a smile as she considered that, strolling around the console and flicking the switch to initiate the startup sequence on the Tardis. Sooner or later he'd do something useful, but for now she'd feel better just getting away from here.

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyes a bit wide - the way they always got when she navigated his Tardis.

"Just observing, my love."

"Observing? Just what are you observing?"

Her smile widened, too innocent. She had to admit, she enjoyed this kind of squirming.

"Observing wouldn't include any sort of inter-dimensional transport _away_ from the Tardis I arrived here in, would it? Because I'm rather fond of my Tardis and frankly, I'd like it to stay very close by it."

"Well, now that you're here, I was 'observing' us somewhere safer."

"There's two versions of me in the same temporal space with an enormously hungry thing strolling around in my head and you're proposing to take me away from my Tardis. Exactly what is safer about that?"

"Well, at least we won't have to worry about a second enormously hungry thing."

She frowned as she looked around the console for the parenthetic configuration module. The Doctor was standing behind her, and she could feel the weight of his stare as she reached for a button near where the module belonged, hoping it would open the panel. But nothing happened. In fact, the button didn't even push. She hit it harder, and eventually had to pound on it with the side of her fist before it depressed, sending them all lurching forward. Eyes wide, she gripped the console so hard, she broke a nail. She hadn't even realized they were in flight! Unless they _weren't _in flight. What had she just done?

Behind her, she heard the Doctor chuckle. "You _do _realize that changing the desktop theme on a Tardis completely changes where everything is, don't you?" he asked with amusement.

River baulked. She looked down at the button she had just depressed, then spun to face him. "What did I... I mean I didn't just... You're joking, right?"

He was grinning like the devil himself, hands behind his back as he rocked on his heels. Her eyes narrowed and she glared daggers at him.

"Ugh, I _hate _you."

He smirked. "If you did, I doubt you would be here trying to save my life. Now!"

He stepped around her, closer to the controls, and all but shoved her out of the way. She was caught between being incredibly frustrated with him and relieved that at least for the moment, he seemed to be back to his normal self.

"If you are so inclined to careen us through all of space and time in an unfamiliar Tardis until we wind up on some forgotten planet on the outskirts of the universe might I first suggest - most strongly," he flipped a switch, "that we set a fixed in-point, an inter-dimensional homing beacon to get us back to where we started and by the way, you're going to need this."

He reached under the console, pulled out a rubber mallet, and handed it to her with a smile as he stepped back. She stared at it for a moment before taking it.

"Off you go, then, Ms. I-Can-Fly-A-Tardis-As-Well-As-You." He leaned in closer, nose to nose with her, still smirking like the cat that ate the canary. "Impress me."

River's hands tightened around the handle of the mallet. More and more lately, she wanted to slap that man. But she enjoyed impressing him just as much. Holding the mallet aside, she stepped around him.

"Tracing in-point..." She narrated her actions as maps of the console flashed through her head. She had to reorient... "Updating the library, setting coordinates for blank space in the Falagain Network _and_... ordering some breakfast. How did you know?"

She whacked the panel with the hammer, nodding at its satisfying thud. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smile. "And all while channeling Rose Tyler into my head," he flattered, his tone slightly mocking. "See? You don't need me here after all."

She glared as the Tardis shook slightly, the time rotor whirring as they entered flight. But she had nothing to say to that.


	5. Chapter Four - Cautious Exploration

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**Cautious Exploration**

Yelling at the dark had gotten Rose nowhere. She was losing her voice, and the boy - the Master - was watching her with quiet amusement. Frustrated, Rose finally turned and walked back to him, crossing her arms over her chest. A cool breeze swept past, and she shivered slightly. She really wished that woman was here. That woman who had seemed to know what she was doing and didn't have the attitude of a child who was too clever for his own good.

"She said there was a way," Rose muttered under her breath.

"Who did?"

"River. The woman who told me about the Quiescenary."

The boy tipped his head curiously, but didn't answer.

"She said I would have to access his memories," Rose continued, thinking out loud. "And I did! That bedroom - the Doctor's bedroom, when he was a kid. There's memories behind all of these doors, right? Like when he read my mind and he told me to put anything I didn't want him to see behind a door. Isn't that what this is? A hall of memories?"

The boy stared at her for a moment, then turned his back and looked all the way down the hall. "Behind each one of these doors is a reserve of dormant psyonic energy."

"Right. We have to make it not dormant. Because then the Quiescenary can't eat it."

"If the Doctor's unconscious, he's not able to actively engage."

"Well, can't _you_?"

"No. I told you; my existence here is only a hypostatized audio-visual expression of active psyonic energy."

"Whatever that means."

He smirked at her.

"But what about if I open the doors? I activate the energy then, right?"

He eyed her curiously. "I don't know. I suppose so, but I don't really know what you are. Nobody but the Doctor has ever come here. And he hasn't been here for centuries at least."

She crouched down to look the child in the eye. "Look. You know these halls. You know what's behind these doors. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"Then show me. Show me where the biggest energy reserves are."

The boy hesitated for a long moment, then dropped his voice as he spoke again. "How do I know you won't hurt him?"

"Hurt him?" she asked, confused.

"You're unknown. Opening these doors for you violates the defensive structure of his mental complex. I don't know what you are, or how you exist here. So how do I know you're safe?"

"Because I love him."

The boy raised a brow at her instinctive response, as if amused. Rose took a deep, calming breath. She hadn't even thought about it before she spoke. She would never hurt the Doctor; the thought hadn't even occurred to her. But she was going to need a better explanation than love if she was going to convince a child.

"Alright, how about this? Because even if you don't know what I am, you know _who _I am. You knew I was there when he regenerated. And you know I've been with him since. He let me in. I couldn't have gotten this far if he hadn't let me in. He trusts me. And you can trust me, too."

He studied her with eyes far too old for his body. It made her wonder, very suddenly, how old the boy really was. It was an impossible question for her to answer. Even if he was a figment of the Doctor's imagination, there was something about him that was as real as it was ancient.

"Alright," the Master finally answered. "Come with me."

Rose followed in silence as he led her down the hall. When he stopped, she stopped behind him, looking at the door looming in front of them. There was no obvious locking mechanism or handle. The boy simply touched it and it slid open, revealing a narrow, deeply shadowed hallway on the other side. The tile floor was beautifully decorated, and the high ceiling had delicate curves that extended all the way down to the floor. The architecture reminded Rose of a cathedral, except there didn't appear to be any wood. Everything was instead pristine white, shadowed in blue-grey light from the windows. If she had been on Earth, which she clearly was not, she would've thought the whole structure was made of ivory.

Hesitantly, she stepped inside, heading for one of the windows. "What is this place?"

"It's the dormitory of the Prydon Academy."

"Academy," she repeated. "The one the Doctor went to, you mean. On Gallifrey?"

"Yes."

She approached the window and looked outside, her eyes widening slightly as she took in the sight of the city outside. It was bathed in silvery moonlight, eerily silent and still. She couldn't see the moon, or how many of them there were. The light was coming from behind her. She was mesmerized by the way it glistened off of the elegant, glassy structures, white and crystal, with spires and perfectly symmetrical peaks and dips. It wasn't just a city; it was a beautiful work of art.

She took a moment to study it all, then looked back at the doorway she'd entered through. From this angle, it simply looked like one of many doors along the left hand side of the wall.

"Are you coming?" she asked the boy, who was still standing on the other side of it, in the darkness.

He shook his head emphatically.

"Why not?"

"I'm a hypostatic energy expression," he answered simply. He made a face. "I don't like dormant environments."

"How will I know what I'm looking for if you don't come with me?"

"You'll know."

"So I just wander around until I find something interesting?"

"Go where you feel led. You'll be naturally attracted to things that are familiar. In a place like this, it should be easy for you to find the Doctor."

She looked around her, up at the ceiling, following the lines of the structure as they extended all the way down the long hallway. "I'm inside of someone else's memory of an enormous building on a planet that no longer exists. Nothing is familiar."

"Exactly. He's the only thing you'll recognize. You'll find him. And I'll wait here for you, when you come out."

Without another word, the boy stepped back and closed the door quietly. She stared at it for a moment. It suddenly looked just like every other door. Taking a deep, focusing breath, she looked up and down the hallway. "Okay, Doctor," she said quietly as she took the first few steps to the right. "Where are you?"

*X*X*X*

"What's wrong?"

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, the Doctor shook his head. "Nothing."

"No, tell me."

River took a step closer, raising a hand to the side of his face. He'd been attentive while she flew them through the Vortex and deposited them in empty space. The console really was set up completely differently, and she had far more difficulty flying it than she ever had before. He had no such trouble, nor did he hesitate with the rubber mallet when the occasion called for it. She'd watched him with pure fascination. How _did _he ever survive with such primitive equipment?

But once they'd stopped, he'd withdrawn. Actually, he'd withdrawn a few minutes before they'd stopped, when he'd moved back from the console and sat down in the jump seat, his eyes locked on the unconscious figure on the floor. His former self, in close proximity. His former self whose mind and memories were currently being shaken by the presence of a dangerous parasite.

"What are you experiencing?" she asked, stepping closer to him.

"Memories," he answered, surprising her with his willingness to reply. But he wasn't willing to look at her. He closed his eyes to avoid her when she stepped into his field of vision. "Old memories, from a very long time ago."

She cast a glance in the direction of his other, younger self. "Because of him?" she guessed. "Because you share the same mind, and right now, you're in close proximity."

"Ideally. But probably not."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

He opened his eyes and gave her a look that was unreadable. Concern? Skepticism? In all the years she'd known him, she'd never really learned to decipher what he was thinking when he looked at her like that.

"It's not dangerous," she said firmly, waiting for him to either agree or disagree.

"Well, that depends."

"On what?"

"On exactly what's causing it." He glanced back at the unconscious figure on the floor. "I've crossed paths with other versions of myself before. But when I did, we never unintentionally shared each other's experience, each other's consciousness. We had to do that intentionally when we wanted to do."

"So what are you saying? What else could it be?"

"Not sure. It could be due to regressed memories that are surfacing simply because I'm here. Or it could be permanent, lasting effects of the damage being done by the Quiescenary."

She frowned. "If it was permanent damage, why would it only be affecting you now?"

"Because we might have changed something. Anything we do or don't do can change the course of _established _history. Our own history." He glanced up at her with hooded eyes. "And that's what makes it so dangerous."

She wanted to reply, wanted to point out some reason why it was unlikely they had changed or endangered anything at all. But she simply had no answer. He knew more about this situation than she did, and even what she knew did not look good. Still, he _could _survive this. In his own history, the Doctor she knew and loved _had _survived it.

"You're channeling her," the Doctor said quietly, his eyes shifting from his former self to the still, unconscious woman on the floor even as he spoke to River. "That means you're psychically linked to her."

Startled out of her thoughts, she cast a glance at Rose and nodded. "I suppose so."

"So how much of what she's seeing can you see?"

"None of it."

He frowned as he studied her skeptically. "Now, I know that's not true."

She raised a brow. "You think I'd lie at a time like this?"

"I think you'd lie while the universe was imploding if you had a good enough reason."

"And what's my reason now?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

She hesitated a moment, evaluating her response more carefully before answering. It wasn't a lie; she couldn't see what Rose was seeing. But in a way, she could feel what she felt.

"I can feel her reactions," she finally admitted. "Her emotion. If I concentrate, that is. But that's all. Not her thoughts, not what she's seeing or hearing. I can't tell where she is."

"Tell me."

"What, her reactions?"

"Yes."

"Well, at first, she was -"

"Right now," he interrupted. "Tell me what she's feeling right now."

River frowned as she studied him. "Why?"

"Because I want to know, River, isn't that enough? It's my mind, my memories. Just _tell _me."

Another moment of hesitation, and River closed her eyes to concentrate. "She's... awed. Wherever she is, it's beautiful. But she's worried she might not find you."

River fell silent. As she opened her eyes again, she saw him studying the figures on the floor, arms crossed tightly over his chest. But it wasn't a defensive posture. He almost looked as if he were hugging himself. The worry crept back in on the corners of River's mind.

"Doctor..."

"I feel her, too."

River stepped closer, touching his arm lightly. He didn't flinch, but his eyes closed again as he took in a slow, deep breath.

"I can feel her, and I can feel... me. The memory... I remember what it felt like, and I feel it all over again. Like it was just yesterday. Everything I'd forgotten about it. Every taste, every smell, every texture..."

"What memory?" River asked, worried. "Doctor, where is she?"

He was still and silent for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes again, it was to look at Rose, still and silent on the floor of the Tardis.

"She's in my childhood," he said quietly. "My first night at the Academy. The night I met the Master."


	6. Chapter Five - The Academy

**CHAPTER FIVE  
The Academy**

Shoes squeaking on the shiny floor, Rose walked slowly down the pristine hallway, listening for any sound. She was paying attention to every door and window, waiting for something to feel right as she wandered down the beautiful but entirely unfamiliar hallway. She had better not get lost in here, she thought. Of course, she wasn't really sure it made any difference. She was almost certain she couldn't go back out the way she'd come in; that door was just like any other along the wall. She wasn't really sure how to get out of this place...

The sound of quiet crying interrupted her thoughts. Pausing mid-step, she looked at the door to her left. She shouldn't be able to hear that through the door. It was too quiet, too muffled. Very slowly, she set a hand on the doorknob. Should she open it? _Could _she open it? Taking a deep breath, she tried it. The door opened soundlessly, letting her into a dark room with two beds - one on either side. The crying was coming from the bed on the right, a blond tuft of hair and a figure buried under the blankets, facing the wall. On the other side of the room, another figure sat up.

"Why are you crying?"

Rose recognized the curious voice instantly. The Master - the boy from the hallway. Squinting through the darkness, she could see just enough of him to recognize him as the same boy.

"I want to go home," the blonde boy answered, sniffling.

"What do you mean, go home?" the Master scoffed. "This is home now."

"Well, I hate it."

"Even so, you'd best get used to it. We're going to be here a long time."

"I don't want to get used to it. I want to leave this place."

"Well, if you did leave, you couldn't go home. They would just send you back. So where would you go?"

"I don't know."

"You should make a plan if you're really serious about it. And if you're going someplace interesting, maybe I'll come with you."

The tears stopped abruptly. Rose stood against the wall unnoticed as she watched the crying boy turn on his other side. As soon as she saw his face, she recognized him as well.

"Who are you?" he asked, wiping his eyes roughly as he looked across the room at the other boy.

"I'm called the Master. You were asleep when I came in. I thought I wouldn't get to meet you until morning."

"Master." A slight smile cracked the child's tear-stained face and he sat up slowly. The Master was already sitting cross legged on his bed now, with his back against the wall. "I like that. I'm the Doctor."

The Master laughed quietly. "That must be why they put us together."

"Why?"

"The Doctor and the Master. Seems appropriate, don't you think?"

The Doctor looked away. "It's not like that."

"Did you know that in some civilizations, children are named by their parents? They're created as tiny infants and their parents make all their decisions for them."

"Born."

"What?"

The Doctor glanced up again. "They're born. Not created. Don't you read?"

"Not unless I have to. I find it very boring."

"Yes." The Doctor's tone was full of sadness. "It can be."

"How unfortunate they must feel."

"Who?"

"The infant children. To be completely reliant upon someone else. To have someone else controlling your life, even choosing your name."

"If everyone in their civilization has the same experience, why would anyone feel unfortunate? Besides," the Doctor pulled his knees up to his chest, looking across the room at the Master, "you can't choose your name, either."

"I most certainly can!"

"You can choose what you're called, but the Schism tells you your name. It tells you who you are."

The Master frowned deeply. "I don't believe that."

"It's not a matter of believing it. It is what it is."

"What did it tell you?"

The Doctor lowered his eyes, hugging his knees tighter. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Why not?" the Master said defiantly.

"I just don't. And the rules say I don't have to."

"Do you always play by the rules?"

"Rules are there for our protection."

"To keep us proper, you mean."

The Doctor studied him for a moment. "I suppose."

"Do you want to be proper?"

"We don't have much of a choice, here."

The Master smiled. "We always have a choice."

The look on the Doctor's face reflected sheer curiosity. "You know, I don't think I've met anyone like you. You're very odd."

"That's not a bad thing."

"No. I suppose not."

"Another reason why they put us together."

"What do you mean?"

"You're different, too. Everyone knows it."

The young Doctor looked away.

"The reading. Your reading. Of your name."

The Doctor lowered his head, cutting his eyes to the floor. "I don't want to talk about that."

"Well, like you said, you don't have to." The Master's smile fell. "Though if you didn't want to talk about it, you really shouldn't have said anything to anyone. Now they'll never stopharassing you."

"I _didn't_ say anything!"

"Nobody heard your name read but you. How would they know if you didn't tell them?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor's gaze was cold and angry when he looked up again. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for any of this. I'm different, and that's true, but I can't change that!"

"Why would you want to?"

The Doctor blinked in frank shock. The Master's smile returned.

"I think it makes you interesting. Like I said, I was hoping to meet you. The Last Child of Gallifrey. What does that mean, anyway?"

"Lonely."

"What?"

"Lonely Child." The Doctor was looking away again, mumbling so low it was hard to understand him. "It's Old High Gallifreyan and that's a mistranslation. The word is 'solitary' - in the sense of 'lonely'', not 'last'."

"You read Old High Gallifreyan?" The wonder in the Master's voice was unmistakable.

"Yes."

"Where did you learn it?"

"I taught myself."

"How?"

"I don't know." For just a moment, the Doctor seemed perplexed by the question, or perhaps his lack of a good answer. "I just... learned it."

"But that doesn't make any sense!"

"Some things simply don't."

The Master stared for a long moment. Then he bounded out of bed, throwing aside the blankets as he stumbled to the desk on the far wall. Opening a backpack, he withdrew a slender cylinder that looked as if it were made of glass. But he didn't handle it like something fragile. He crossed quickly to the Doctor's bed, creaking the bedsprings as he vaulted onto the mattress.

"Can you read this?"

The Doctor stared at it, then looked back up at the Master, confused. "What is it?"

"It's my name."

"Didn't they read it to you?"

The Master shook his head. "They wouldn't."

"What do you mean, they wouldn't?"

"The Visionary refused to read it to me."

For a long moment, the Doctor didn't speak. Finally, he took the case and opened it to carefully withdraw the scroll inside. "They can't keep it from you," the Doctor said in confusion as he unraveled it.

"They said when I was older, I could learn to read it for myself. But they didn't tell me where I could learn. There's no one here who teaches Old High Gallifreyan anymore. It's a dead language, but for ceremonial purposes; isn't that right?"

Another exchange of glances, and the Doctor shook his head in wonder, ignoring the question. "That's very odd."

"I think it must be something bad," the Master said with no small amount of trepidation. "The way the Initiator looked when he read it, it was as if he were afraid."

"But even if it is bad, they still have to read it to you. And you asked the Visionary?"

"He wouldn't speak to me."

Slowly, the Doctor looked down at the scroll, tracing the circles with his finger as he made out the words. Each set of words made up a letter, and each letter with the next formed the Master's given name. Koschei. That was the easy part.

Contained in that name - in all of the words that made up all of the letters - was the essence and nature of the Time Lord who bore it. Some called it prophecy, a glimpse of things to come. The Doctor hated that word. For one thing, prophecies were superstitious and silly and the use of such a word cheapened the meaning of the reading. For another, to call the reading a prophecy was totally inaccurate. The words described the very soul of the man - the things that would never change, no matter how many times he regenerated or where his life took him. If they also said something of where he would go, that wasn't at all the point.

"Can you read it?" the Master asked anxiously.

"Yes. But it's difficult."

"Well, what does it say?"

The Doctor took a deep breath.

"The king is in his counting house and Death is at the door.  
Her choice is not her choosing and it costs the lives of more.  
Blood and pain in consequence, a million deaths to come,  
On broken wings, the children fly to slaughter when it's done."

The Master stared. "What the bloody hell does that mean?"

"Shh. I'm not finished. That's only part of it."

"Well, what's the other half?"

"Just give me a moment, please."

The Master waited anxiously, watching over the Doctor's shoulder as his fingers traced the lines and circles again.

"A man of no one's choosing sees no vision but his own.  
An enmity of ages from the seeds of friendship sown.  
The lonely child and renegade, the master of them all  
Who never shall return again to Gallifreyan call."

The Doctor looked up as he finished and locked eyes with the Master. For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence.

"The lonely child," the Master finally said quietly. "Is that you? Is that why they put us together?"

The Doctor traced the words once more, then quickly rolled the scroll back up and slid it into its canister. "I shouldn't be looking at this," he said quickly, his voice a bit shaky. "This is for your eyes only."

"My eyes couldn't read it."

"Well, now you know what it says. You should keep it to yourself."

The Master stared for a long moment at the encased scroll before he took it and held it in his lap. "It's no wonder I didn't like it."

"Like what?"

"My name." The Master glanced up, then lifted the scroll, nodding to it. "I don't care much for its meaning, either."

Slowly, a smile crept across the young Doctor's face. "And yet you chose a name from within the meaning itself, even without knowing it. The lone Master of all."

The Master stared at him curiously as he pondered that. Then he smiled. "I did, didn't I?"

"That's okay, though. So did I." The Doctor looked away. "I suppose some things can't be changed."

"So you're the Lonely Child and Doctor," the Master prodded curiously. "Doctor of what?"

"Doctor of all."

"All of what?"

The blonde boy laughed quietly. "I don't know. Just..." His smile remained as he looked up again at the Master. "Just the Doctor."

"Well, Doctor," the Master smiled back, tossing the scroll on the floor as he folded his legs in front of him, "what are your plans? Did your prophecy tell you anything more about what you would become?"

"It did." The Doctor's eyes shifted to the window and the dim light filtering inside. His smile grew until he was beaming and finally he spoke, in a soft whisper. "It told me I would see the stars."


	7. Chapter Six - Two of a Kind

**CHAPTER SIX**

**Two of a Kind**

**(REF: **_**The Master**_**, Big Finish Audio)**

It took a moment for Rose's eyes to adjust to the darkness in the hallway again. Once they did, she saw that she was alone.

"Master?"

There was no answer. The child was gone. If she'd had any control over how she'd gotten back here, she might have thought she'd taken a wrong turn. But when the scene had faded, she'd simply found herself here, standing in the hallway of the Doctor's memories with locked doors on either side.

Taking a moment to reorient herself, she drew in a few deep, calming breaths. She had to keep moving, even if she wasn't entirely sure where she was going. She was here for a reason. The Doctor was depending on her. Finally, she started forward again.

"Master? Where are you?"

In the shadows up ahead, something moved. She drew in a quick breath as she squinted into the darkness. A figure, standing beside one of the doors.

"Master?"

The figure didn't move. Very slowly, she stepped forward, one foot in front of the other over the hard, smooth floor. The shadow was too tall to be the boy she'd met earlier, and too thin. But if not him, who was it?

"Doctor, is that you?"

Still no answer. As she approached, her eyes adjusted and the outline became clearer. It was neither the Doctor nor the Master, she realized. It was a woman. A woman with long black hair and pale skin, standing silently at the door as if guarding it. Rose approached carefully, looking her up and down. Her appearance was almost ghost-like in the floor length white dress, fading in and out like sunlight through a cloud.

"Hello?" Rose asked, not sure if the woman could see her. Who was this? "Can you hear me?"

The ghost's eyes did not fix on Rose; she remained staring at the wall in front of her. Or, perhaps, at someone or something else that Rose did not see. But her lips curled up into a smile as she spoke with a low, almost teasing voice.

"Can you smell the blood on your hands?"

Rose swallowed hard. Somehow, that voice sent a chill down her spine. "What?"

"You can't escape fate, Doctor. Remember that." The ghost's smile grew. "I have seen inside your head. I know your future. It's not too late to join me, you know."

The woman fell silent again, smiling as if she knew a secret. And perhaps she did. Maybe she knew whatever secret was behind this door. In any case, the door was cracked open while the others were locked tight. Taking a deep breath, Rose stepped forward and touched the warm metal surface, pushing it open slowly.

*X*X*X*

"Do you suppose we'll have to wait until after we graduate to see those stars?"

The two boys from the Academy dormitory were older now, but not by much. Where they'd been seven or eight before, they were now eleven or twelve, lying on the bank of a slow-moving, crystal clear river, arms under their heads as they stared up at the sky.

"Look hard enough, you can see them right now."

"No, stupid!" The Master laughed, tossing a twig in the Doctor's general direction. "You know what I mean."

The Doctor heaved a sigh as he turned onto his stomach, picking at the blades of red grass. "I know I'm not waiting that long. First chance I get, I'm leaving this planet."

"Not for good..."

The Doctor laughed. "Now wouldn't _that _be rich?"

"In three more years, we can learn to fly a Tardis, you know." The Master grinned. "And I've heard that on the newer models, it's not terribly difficult to bypass the isomorphic circuit."

"On the newer models?" The Doctor raised a brow, questioningly. "I should think the older ones would be more prone to security risks."

"Only if you're an amateur."

The Doctor laughed. "Oh? And just what are you, then?"

"I am the Master, remember?"

Both boys were tossed into a fit of laughter at that. It wasn't until they'd had their laugh and the silence fell again that the Master finally spoke, a bit somber.

"Of course, you do realize that if we take those classes, it does mean fifty years of compulsory servitude to the Matrix once we graduate."

"Servitude to the Matrix!" The Doctor laughed. "Do you really see it that way?"

"Is there any other way? Go to this planet, gather this data, bring it all back to download it into our vast database of endless knowledge."

The Doctor chuckled. "Sounds like fun to me."

"Well it would be if we could actually _interact _with the worlds and the people out there."

"Hmm... Do you think they'd ever know if we did?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Well, I guess they'd _know_, but would they really care? I mean, as long as we didn't_ change_ anything."

"How could we not?"

"Oh, I'm sure we wouldn't be the first to dare to step out of a Tardis on a foreign planet."

"Nor would we be the first to get caught. And I don't like the stories of what happens when they _do _catch you."

The Doctor laughed. "Oh, please. You're starting to sound like one of them."

"One of who?"

"The others."

"What others?"

"The people who aren't like us." The Doctor smiled. "We're two of a kind, you and me. The same. You know that. You've always known that."

The Master smiled back as he relaxed on the grass again, closing his eyes and soaking in the warm sunshine. "Yes, I suppose."

The silence settled again, interrupted only by the trickling water nearby, the gentle sound as it flowed over the rocks in the shallower parts.

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"What do you suppose they intend to _do _with all of the knowledge they collect, anyway? Besides force-feeding it to the next generation, I mean."

The Doctor laughed again. "No doubt!"

"Well, to what end?" He turned his head, studying the Doctor curiously. "What do you suppose happens when we Time Lords know everything there is to know? What then?"

"I suppose we'll have to create and invent new things to know."

"Now _that_, I would like to be a part of!" The Master beamed. "But amassing a wealth of knowledge for no particular reason seems so tedious."

"Well, we could always amass it for our _own _knowledge and just never come back."

The Master smirked. "You can't help it, can you? Always ready to break the rules. You know, as I recall it, you used to _like _rules. There for our protection, isn't that right?"

The Doctor scowled. "I've had enough of rules to last through all of my regenerations and I'm still only just starting."

The Master chuckled. "No wonder Professor Donata wants to hold you back this year."

"Professor Donata is a stupid, self-absorbed, pompous ass."

"Who has every right and reason to flunk you."

"Let him try."

"If he tried, he would."

The Doctor shrugged, as if the idea hardly concerned him. With a smile, the Master continued.

"You and I know you're smarter than nine-tenths of the people on _any _level in the Academy. But if you don't learn to at least _pretend_ like you give a damn, they're going to continue to think you're absolutely stupid. Your grades are _pathetic_."

Smiling, the Doctor let his gaze wander lazily in the midday sunlight. He couldn't care less about his grades. And neither, he knew, could the Master.

When the Doctor's eyes caught the movement at the top of the slope leading down to the riverbank, his smile fell instantly. A much larger boy, shoulders broad and wicked smile gleaming, was walking towards them. Startled and instantly afraid, the Doctor sat upright.

"Master, look."

The Master sat up beside him, brought to attention by the serious tone. The intruding boy's eyes were fixed on them as if he were a hunter who'd just identified his prey. He sneered, his enormous frame rocking from side to side as he swaggered toward them.

"We should run," the Doctor said quietly, rising to his feet. "We've still got enough time; we might be able to outrun him."

But the Master's fists clenched as he stood to his feet. "Why should we run? This is my family's land. I shouldn't have to run."

The Doctor's eyes widened slightly. "And do you think Torvic cares whose land it is?"

"Well, maybe he should."

"Just because he should doesn't mean he will and you're going to get us killed if you keep this up."

"This is my father's land," the Master said again. He turned and looked at his friend for support. But there was still fear in his eyes, in spite of his bold statement. "My inheritance. And besides, there's two of us and only one of him."

"Yes, that's true. And he's stronger than both of us put together, remember?"

"But that's just it! He's big and stupid and clumsy!" Frozen in place as they faced each other, neither one realized that the argument was moot. They'd run out of time to flee. "We're a thousand times more clever. And it's not like we're first year students anymore. We can -"

"Aren't you ants supposed to be in your special classes?"

The boy looming over them was intimidating by anyone's standards. Pure muscle and angry pride, ready to vent it on anyone who stepped into his path. He was at least three years older and a foot taller than either of them. The Doctor took a big step back, but it wasn't really necessary. Torvic had already chosen his target, and he saw nothing else. Putting his shoulders back, the Master stood his ground and held his chin up.

"At least we're not in _remedial _classes." His voice was trembling a bit, but his heels were dug into the soft embankment even as the bully's eyes blazed with anger. "I hear you couldn't even pass your introductory courses until last term."

"Who do you think you're talking to!"

The Master took a step back, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the bully. Torvic grabbed the front of his shirt. Eyes wide with fear, the Doctor scrambled back, further away. A guilty part of him was glad that he was not the one about to take a beating. But another part of him was mortified at the thought that there was nothing he could do to help his friend. Rooted in place by the sight of the Master in the enormous bully's clutches, the Doctor watched with eyes wide. He knew how this story went. They had seen it before. There was nothing that he could do.

But then, the Master did something he had never done before; he fought back.

His fist was only about half the size of the bully's. He didn't even land a good hit before he found himself flying into the water, scrambling to find his footing as the bigger boy bounded in after him. Dragging the Master into waist deep water, Torvic grabbed him by the hair, and shoved him down, beneath the surface.

"I'll teach you ants to show some respect!"

Flailing and coughing, the Master was dragged up just long enough to gasp a breath before Torvic plunged him back down. Trembling slightly, his eyes wide with shock and fear, the Doctor took a tentative, frightened step forward. "Torvic, stop!"

The bully looked up at him and laughed. He needed only one hand to hold the Master under the surface of the water, even in spite of the struggle. "Why don't you come over here and make me? I'll do you, too! At the same time! Drown you both!"

The anger that came over the Doctor was sudden and irrationally intense. A flood of adrenaline fueled by fear and passion. Hands clenching into fists at his sides, he took a step forward and spoke with vicious determination.

"Torvic, I am warning you. Let him go, or I will stop you!"

Torvic laughed. "I would love to see you try."


	8. Chapter Seven - The First

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**The First**

The Master came out of the water again, sputtering and gasping, pulling with both hands on the one that held his hair. He was fighting too wildly to look at the Doctor, but the Doctor got a good look at him. Eyes wide and afraid, panicked as he struggled like his life depended on it. In all of the times they had gone through this same routine, there had never been a fear for life. But this time, Torvic had gone too far.

The mockery fueled the rage to overflowing, and the Doctor was moving. Into the water with a rock he'd somehow picked up, without thought, along the way. It fit perfectly in his hand - just small enough for his fingers to wrap around with a firm grip, big enough to be a formidable weapon. Pulling his arm back as far as he could, the Doctor swung with all his might. The rock hit the back of Torvic's skull with a resounding _crack!_ and he immediately slumped forward.

The Doctor stepped back as the Master struggled to his feet, coughing and gasping. "What? What! What have you...?"

It only took a moment for them both to realize what had been done. There was blood in the water, pouring from the back of Torvic's split skull. The Doctor had hit him so hard, the bone had not just cracked, it had all but shattered. Still holding the bloody rock, the Doctor stared blankly at the body slumped forward in the water, as if he were a million miles away.

"Doctor."

Nearly tripping in his haste, the Master pulled himself up and through the water, the few steps to where the Doctor stood still. Then he grabbed his shoulders, shaking him hard. "Doctor!"

Finally, the Doctor blinked, bringing his eyes to focus on the boy in front of him. "Master?"

"What have you done?"

The Doctor stared at him for a moment, then looked past him at the body, streaming blood into the slow-moving water.

"We have to get out of here."

The Master was already moving, scrambling for dry ground. But the Doctor was rooted in place.

"He'll regenerate, right?" the Doctor said shakily.

"Yes, right! And maybe he won't remember!"

"He would have killed you..."

"Doctor!"

Finally, the Doctor looked up again. Dazed, he stared at the Master, who was already on dry ground, holding out a hand.

"We have to go. Now!"

Another long moment passed before the Doctor finally turned and took the Master's hand, pulling himself up out of the water. They were up the side of the riverbank and into the trees before the Doctor stopped. "Wait a minute."

"Wait for what?"

The Doctor turned back.

"Doctor, are you mad! Let's get out of here!"

Silently, the Doctor crouched down into the brush to stare down at the figure lying face down in the water. "Master, he's still bleeding."

"All the more reason why we need to run!"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, but... Why hasn't he regenerated?"

The Master stopped, and came a few steps closer, crouching down beside the Doctor to watch.

"It shouldn't take this long. Especially not the first time."

"How would you know?"

"Because I've seen it."

"You have? Who?"

The Doctor shot him a brief glare. "Does it matter?"

"I was just asking."

Another long moment of silence passed before the Doctor spoke again. "Why isn't he regenerating?"  
"Maybe it isn't his first time."

"It has to be. He's still in Academy."

"Well, I don't know!"

"Even if it wasn't his first, something should be happening by now. There doesn't appear to be any regenerative energy signature at all."

"Are you sure? Maybe it just takes longer if it's a traumatic death."

"Or maybe it's his brain." There was dread in the Doctor's voice.

"What do you mean?"

Very slowly, the Doctor turned and locked eyes with the Master. "Regeneration renews every cell, but it's initially triggered by the brain's realization that the body is damaged. I hit his head, Master. His brain was first to die."

The Master's eyes widened and the two boys stared at each other. Finally, he swallowed hard and looked back down at the body as the Doctor stared blankly at the trees, muttering quietly. "I killed him. Completely. He can't regenerate."

The Master swallowed hard and sat up straighter, his gaze growing cold and determined as he shifted it from Torvic to the Doctor and back again.

"Then we have to get rid of the body."

"Poor little Doctor."

The female voice, unexpected in the stillness, made Rose jump. Rose had been so intent on the scene playing out in front of her, she'd almost forgotten that it wasn't real. As if she'd forgotten her own presence.

"Poor little Master. Nasty little Torvic."

She wasn't sure where the voice was coming from. It echoed through the trees like a whisper on the wind, unnoticed by the two boys as they dragged Torvic's body from the river. The woman from the door. The ghost. The one whose voice sent a chill down Rose's spine.

"He deserved to die, didn't he?"

As the voice faded on the wind, the Doctor and the Master covered the body of the boy with branches and set the funeral pyre alight. All too aware of her own swirling emotions - fear and horror and dread and confusion - Rose somehow felt aware of the Doctor's as well. There was guilt inside of him - remorse and sadness. He was just a child. And yet, he had committed murder to protect his friend. How was a child supposed to live with that?

Standing back as he watched the flames consume the body, the Doctor wiped his eyes roughly to clear away the tears. He jumped, startled, as the Master's hand closed over his and squeezed hard.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?" the Doctor asked, sniffling again in his attempt to make the tears go away.

"Cry for him." The Master paused. "You're right. He would have killed me."

"No, he wouldn't have done. You and I both know that. He was a bully, not a killer."

"You did what you had to do."

"I took a life, Master." The Doctor turned slowly to look at the boy standing beside him. "If anyone ever finds out..."

"No one will," the Master said firmly. "Who would tell them?"

The Doctor stared at him, trembling with fear and uncertainty.

"Only we know what happened here," the Master said. "And we must never speak of it again."

"Others had plans for you." That icy voice, carried on the breeze, was back. Rose looked around for the source, but it seemed to come from the wind itself. Only this time, it was louder. And this time, the scene around her slowly faded into the darkness as it continued. "I had to make you a deal. Make a choice. You could live with the guilt and the torment and let it eat away at you until you became mine forever or you could be free and give your closest friend to me."

She was in a dark room. The dormitory room, with the Doctor sitting up in his bed, face to face with the ghost woman. Suddenly, as if instinctively, Rose recognized her. She wasn't a ghost; she was death incarnate, awaiting an answer from the trembling child. With tears in his eyes, the Doctor shot a terrified look across the room at the sleeping figure of the Master. Then, clutching the blanket tighter to his chin, he choked out his reply.

"Take him."

"You should have been the Master." The taunting voice of the woman was not coming from her image. Instead, it came from the darkness that was slowly closing around the scene again. "And he should have been you."

And then there was nothing.

*X*X*X*

"Doctor, are you alright?"

The Doctor's hands were moving over the Tardis console, but he wasn't doing anything in particular. It was for the sake of appearances only - for River. He didn't want to talk to her right now. He especially didn't want to try and explain everything he was thinking and feeling, or reassure her that he was okay. If she could feel what Rose could feel, then she would know that it was painful. Hopefully, she wouldn't pry. He wasn't entirely sure what he would tell her if she did.

"I'm fine, River. Please. Stop asking."

For centuries, he had forgotten about Torvic. When he finally remembered, six regenerations later, it had been a false memory - an image in his mind of the Master committing the murder. He wasn't sure if that had been Death's mercy or her sadism that had made him believe it was the Master's crime and not his own. Maybe it was neither. Maybe it was just his own inability to cope with the truth.

His eyes drifted to the unconscious figures on the floor. It was odd that he could be so distant from those two on the timeline, and yet so able to feel their presence in his thoughts, in his mind. He could feel every movement, every memory she brought to life as if it were happening all over again. Memories that he had long forgotten. Even memories that had warped over time. Now he remembered them all. Now he remembered them clearly. And just now, he felt as if they might rip both of his hearts out of his chest.


	9. Chapter Eight - In Reflection

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**In Reflection**

Rose wasn't sure how she had ended up in the hallway again. She also wasn't sure when the tears had escaped from her corners of her eyes. As she looked up and down the corridor, she reached up a hand to brush them away. So many thoughts swirled in her mind all at once, she could barely tell them apart. His emotions and hers - guilt and horror and fear. That sickening feeling of fault and remorse.

"Are you alright?"

She spun with a gasp and found herself staring into the face of a young man, perhaps her own age. If there had been any thought in her mind that he was human, she might have guessed him Italian or perhaps Castilian. But he wasn't human. She knew who he was before he said another word.

"Master?"

He smiled - charming and sociable. "Yes, of course."

"But you're... older."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, but... why?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he held out a hand to her, palm up, inviting her closer. "Please, come."

She drew a quick breath and put her shoulders back, brushing her eyes roughly. "That... That room," she hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the door. "That was -"

"I said come," he interrupted.

His hand was still outstretched, but the tone of his voice was far more a command than an invitation. It made her blink in surprise. He softened it as he continued. "There is much more to see."

Hesitating a long moment to study him, she finally took a deep breath and a step forward. But it was everything she could do to calm her own emotions as she set her hand in his. The moment they touched, she felt the feelings fade away, as if he'd somehow absorbed them. Confused, but grateful nonetheless, she breathed a heavy sigh.

"Do you know everything that's in these rooms?" Rose asked quietly as he hooked her arm through his and began walking.

"Most everything."

"And the things I've seen... You're in these memories."

"Yes, that's why I guard them."

"Guard them from who?"

"From the Doctor."

She blinked up at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"These are the things he doesn't like to think about. It's why all the energy is dormant. And why it's tucked away behind locked doors."

"So the locks on the doors are to keep the Doctor out of his own memories?"

"The locks on the doors are to keep the memories dormant. If he needs something retrieved from behind any one of them, he need only ask."

"Does he? Ask?"

"No. Never. He doesn't come here."

"Do you miss him?"

"Ha! He couldn't stay away long enough."

Startled, Rose turned to stare at him. "What?"

The Master chuckled. "You humans and your emotions. You experience everything through a filter of easily manipulated perception - how it makes you feel."

She frowned. She wasn't sure if that was a reply or if he was changing the topic. "And is that so different from you?"

He glanced at her. "A Time Lord who cannot control his emotions is a dangerous fool."

"Is that your personal opinion?"

"It's a fact."

"The Doctor might disagree."

Again, the Master laughed. "I'm not an independent entity from the Doctor. I'm an automated system he created to keep order in this section of his brain." He cast her a sideways glance and smiled at her look of confusion before continuing in a more reassuring tone. "Don't let the appearance of autonomy fool you. I'm a sentient being only in his mind."

"So you only feel what he feels? Think what he thinks?"

The Master hesitated. "I think and feel as he imagines I should think and feel. As he remembers I would, when he knew me."

"And how do you feel about that death?"

"What death?"

Rose stopped, pulling him to a halt beside her. "Torvic. The boy. The one you burned at the side of a riverbank to dispose of his body."

The Master studied her for a moment, then smirked slightly. "Does that disgust you?"

"A little." The words were out before she could consider them. Swallowing hard, she looked away. The feelings were back, and just as strong. The longer she thought about what she'd just seen, the more real it felt, all over again. "I just... I never would've thought... I mean, I didn't expect..."

"You didn't expect that the Doctor could take a life?" The Master laughed loudly at that. "You really are very naive."

"No, it's not that." She shifted uncomfortably, feeling his eyes on her as she took a deep breath and regained her focus. "I know he's done that. He's told me as much. It's just... it's the _way_ it happened. All of it - not just at the river. I suppose it just... caught me off guard. That woman..."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, he was eventually forgiven for that."

"Forgiven?" she asked, confused.

He smiled. "The truth always seems to come out in the end, one way or another."

For a moment, she stood silent, watching him. He was so calm, so relaxed, and as he took her hand again, the emotions receded back into the fog in her head.

"Better?"

She swallowed hard and nodded. "Yes. I think so."

"Good."

"So in all of these thousands of doors, are there any memories that are a bit less... bad?"

"A few." He smiled knowingly. "Though you may not like them much more."

"Why would you say that?"

"It was a very different time, Ms. Tyler. And a very different Doctor, as I'm sure you've begun to realize."

She tipped her head curiously as his words struck her. "You know my name."

"Of course I do."

"But I never gave you my full name."

He laughed. "If I didn't know who you were, do you really think you would be allowed to wander here?"

She hesitated a moment, then finally nodded. "Fair enough." She tipped her chin up. "So show me happy memories with this very different Doctor."

The Master eyed her warily. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," she answered, surprised he had to ask.

"It's very difficult to unlearn the things that you see with your own eyes."

She paused, caught off guard by that answer. "Why would I want to unlearn the happy memories?"

"You said it yourself. You love him. Would you love him the same way if you saw all of his faults laid bare?"

"I said _happy _memories."

"Yes, I know you did. I heard you. But do you really want to see the sort of things that made him happy, way back then? All of his dirty little secrets - crimes committed in the name of pleasure, safe in the dark where nobody's watching?"

A spark of fear ignited inside of her. How deep and endless were these hallways - all of the secrets of more than nine hundred years? In her twenty-one years, she'd done any number of horrendously embarrassing things. Memories she wished she didn't have, locked away behind doors of shame. Things that had felt good at the time. Suddenly, she understood more about this hallway, and about why the doors were locked.

"Are there no memories that are just plain _good_?" she asked quietly.

"Of course there are. If taken in the correct context."

"What do you mean?"

"Can you leave your context at the door? Your Doctor, the things you think you know about him? Can you watch him and feel him and know him for what he is rather than what he is to you? If you can do that, you can feel these memories as he once felt them. Experience them, as if for the first time."

She considered that for a long moment. "I... Yes, I can do that. I think."

"Lose yourself," the Master said quietly. "And your analysis. See only him. Feel as he feels and think as he thinks. Plenty of these memories can be pleasant if you see them the way he saw them when he created them."

"So if they're pleasant, why keep them locked up?"

"Because he's a very different Doctor now. A Doctor who cannot leave himself and his context at the door."

Without another word, the Master turned, and snapped his fingers, opening a door behind him. Smiling, he looked back at her.

"You love a man who cannot love himself. But he wasn't always that way."

Rose stared for a long moment at the darkness on the other side of the open door before taking a few slow, hesitant steps forward. She stopped as she peered inside and saw nothing. Then she turned back to the Master, who was standing calmly with his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

"Suppose I can't," she said hesitantly. "What happens if I can't leave myself at the door?"

"Then I'm afraid you'll have a very difficult time finding joy in any of his memories."

She nodded slowly as she looked back at the darkness and finally took a deep breath before she stepped inside.


	10. Chapter Nine - Escape From Boredom

**CHAPTER NINE**

**Escape From Boredom**

**(REF: **_**Omega**_**, Big Finish)**

"Doctor!"

The Master found him sleeping. Or, at least, trying to do. The Doctor lifted his arm from where it was draped over his eyes just long enough to focus on the Master as he slammed the door to their room.

"A Type 30 Tardis?" the Master demanded accusatively. "Have you gone mad?"

Rubbing his eyes, the Doctor stretched before he answered. "Nice to see you, too."

"B Class time capsules are notoriously unreliable. You could've ended up stranded on prehistoric Guaro!"

"But I didn't."

The Doctor smiled knowingly as he gave the Master his full attention. With long blonde hair halfway down his back, he looked just like the young man Rose had seen in her vision of Gallifrey. The Doctor, as his earliest self, but grown now and no longer a boy.

"Of all the things to steal, couldn't it at least have been something with... with _class_?"

"I didn't steal it," the Doctor said indignantly. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up. "I borrowed it. And brought it back."

"Yes, so I heard."

"Heard from whom?" the Doctor asked curiously. "I didn't think I'd been caught."

"You weren't. But _somebody _did it and there's only one man I know of on all Gallifrey who would singlehandedly take a Type 30 Tardis on a joyride the night before a class placement exam."

The Doctor smiled. "So cross-wiring the syncophase dimmer switch with the recorded flight dataplan worked, then!"

"Oh, is _that _how you managed to avoid the re-entry scanners?"

The Doctor smiled. The Master glared at him.

"If you keep this up, you're going to get us _both _reprimanded!"

"Both? You had nothing to do with it; I wouldn't think of telling them otherwise."

"Do you think for a moment they'd believe that I _don't _know what sorts of things you're involved in? I already have professors hounding me for information on your whereabouts when you miss a class. Can we please _not _involve the magistrate!"

"Tell me this, Master." With a knowing grin, the Doctor leaned forward, hands folded on his knees. "Are you more agitated that I did it or that I didn't invite you along?"

"Both!"

The Doctor's grin turned to a broad smile at the lack of hesitation. There wasn't even an attempt to hide it. "And does that mean you'd like to take it for a spin?"

"What?" Confused, the Master stared at him. "They've confiscated it! I'm sure they've recut the lock by now!"

The Doctor chuckled as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, pointed device. "And how do you think I got through the lock the first time?"

The Master stared for a long moment as he stepped closer and slowly took the device. "It's a cypher-indent key. A primary key!"

"Indeed it is. Opens any single-curtain trimonic lock on any Tardis."

The Master's jaw dropped. "How did you...?"

"Do you really want to know? Someday, someone might ask you."

The stunned look turned to a frown. "Alright, no. No, I don't want to know. But won't they realize it's _missing_?"

"Of course not. You don't think I'd keep the _original_, do you?"

"And the neurographic security regulator?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Only the newest models check DNA fingerprinting. Anything pre-D class... all you've got to do is talk nicely to her. And bypass the isomorphic circuit, of course."

"But that means you'd be flying on full manual."

"Indeed it does. So..."

The Master looked up as the Doctor stood to his feet, eyes dancing.

"Breakfast, then exams, then adventure. What do you say?"

The sudden plunge into darkness made Rose jump in surprise. She'd forgotten her own intruding presence again, and suddenly, it was as if the overhead light had been switched off. For a moment, all she could see was the imprint of the previous scene on the back of her eyes. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. Then, a cool breeze, and a woman's voice interrupted the silence.

"I'm from the Celestial Preservation Agency."

"Never heard of you."

That was the Doctor's voice. A Doctor, but not the same Doctor as the one she'd just left. She'd never heard that voice before, she was sure. But at the same time, she knew it was him. The recognition was instinctive.

"We're from your future," the unfamiliar woman explained. "As our name implies, it's our job to make sure the pattern of history remains intact."

"How very commendable." The Doctor didn't sound terribly impressed. "But I don't see anything here that affects recorded history."

As her vision slowly cleared, Rose tried to bring him into focus. Light colored jacket. Blonde? Her vision of him was so blurry, she couldn't even tell if she'd seen him before. One thing she knew for certain, it was neither the Doctor she knew, nor the one who had been talking with the Master moments before. Why was everything so blurry?

"And isn't it forbidden for Time Lords to dip into their own history?" the Doctor continued.

"We also look after the perception of recorded history, Doctor. Sometimes, that's as important as history itself."

The woman he was talking to was easier to focus on. A Time Lord, if Rose had heard the Doctor correctly. But a female one. Time Lady, then? Rose wasn't sure. In any case, the woman looked very old, but she spoke with the calm, forceful authority of a younger woman who was used to being in charge. If she was the same race as the Doctor, there would be no telling her age.

Rose looked around her, at the ship's walls. It was a very old ship, with badly worn fixtures and deep cracks in the grey walls and floor. It was definitely not a Tardis. Who did it belong to? How had she gotten here and why? What was the connection?

"We look on the past very differently now," the woman continued. "We like to keep it under control."

"Really?"

Rose smiled at the Doctor's tone. His voice had never sounded so flat and unamused.

"How very uninteresting."

"Sorry, you're a Time Lord?" Rose hadn't even noticed the man standing beside the Doctor until he spoke to the woman.

"Yes, Mr. Daland."

As the woman turned her attention to him, Rose focused again on the ship, reaching out to touch the cool metal. She half expected her hand to pass right through. She wasn't really here, after all. But in fact, she could feel it as well as smell it. Bitter and crisp, unlike anything she'd ever smelled before. This ship looked - felt - very foreign. Very old, and a little uncomfortable.

As the woman rambled on to Mr. Daland, the Doctor rolled his eyes.

"As much as I enjoy chitchatting here with you," he finally interrupted, patience waning, "can I ask what you're doing here? Apart from getting in the way, of course."

"My mission is to make sure a certain hero's reputation remains intact."

"Well, I'm glad you lot have found something useful to do for a change. You realize that nothing was Omega's fault here? He was completely blameless."

Omega. Rose had heard that name before. The Doctor had mentioned it once. One of two men responsible for the creation of Time Lord civilization. Rose's interest was piqued. But the woman only laughed.

"Oh, you silly man. We're not here about Omega; he's a complete joke in our time. We're here about _you_."

Rose blinked, interested, and focused her attention on the woman. The Doctor, a hero to his people? It wasn't hard to believe, but it amused her all the same. Unfortunately, no sooner had she turned than the scene melted around her. She groaned inwardly. Why change the scene when it was just getting interesting? Why change the scene at all? Maybe more importantly, _how _were these scenes changing? Were they "filed" this way? Was it something she was doing? Or the Doctor, perhaps? Could she learn to control it, or at least influence it? She wasn't even sure how the pieces fit together when she was only seeing bits and scraps.

Rose found herself standing in the control room of the Tardis. Rather, it was the control room of _a _Tardis, pale blue and unfamiliar. But she recognized it nonetheless. The pillar in the center of the console, the seemingly porous structure of the walls.

"Where are we?" The Master was leaning over the console as he asked the question.

"Hmm. Somewhere very close to the Stegoran Asteroid Belt," the young Doctor answered from the other side of the round structure.

"I gathered that much. But what planet?"

"I don't know. To tell you the truth, I don't think we're on a planet."

The Master looked up, momentarily confused. "But we've materialized."

"We might have materialized in empty space."

"Did you _mean _to materialize in empty space?"

"Not particularly."

"Then we would have locked onto the nearest gravitational center."

"Yes, we must have done. But there's no planet I know of at these coordinates."

The Master circled the console to look over his shoulder. "Me neither. Check the scanner."

Whatever the Doctor pressed, it seemed to make the entire side of the ship open up. Wide eyed, Rose watched for a moment before she realized that the image was fuzzy - like an static-filled holographic projection.

"Oh, it's a ship!" the Doctor exclaimed with glee. "Colony ship, maybe."

"And old. Looks to be at least a few hundred years."

"What do you think? Lurman colony or Yorasian?"

The Master glanced at the date displayed on the console. "Judging by the year, I'd say Lurman."

"If it's Lurman, there will be a whole cluster. Their colony ships never travel alone."

"Indeed."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?"

"Doctor..."

He was halfway to the door before he paused and looked back.

"If it's a ship," the Master warned, "we're going to be noticed."

"So?"

The Master hesitated for a moment. "That in and of itself classifies as a violation of the Non-Interference Policy. If we're caught..."

"If we're caught, then borrowing a Tardis will be the least of our concerns. What's your point?"

The Master stared for a moment, then smiled as he grabbed his coat. "Oh, nothing. Just making sure we're both on the same page."


	11. Chapter Ten - Genocide

**CHAPTER TEN**

**Genocide**

"Pirates, you say?" The Doctor beamed. "Why, this gets more interesting by the minute!"

The Master's chuckle received a vicious glare from the silver-eyed man looming before them. He appeared almost human but for the orange tint to his skin and the bright orange hair.

"This is hardly a laughing matter, young man."

"Sorry," the Master apologized. "Force of habit."

"It is your habit to laugh at the distress of others?"

"Well, yes, that too, but that's not what I meant."

"Master..." The Doctor shot him a brief glare and he smirked back.

"You two are very strange," the unfamiliar man said, glancing back and forth between them warily. "And there is one very important question you have not answered. How did you manage to get aboard my ship? Nothing's been able to dock into our ports for days."

"Your ship?" the Doctor asked. "Oh, you're the captain!"  
"Yes, I am the captain of the 4th Lurman Colony Fleet."

"Splendid! I'm the Doctor, this is the Master, and please, tell me more about these pirates."

The captain hesitated for a moment before continuing slowly. "Our planet was destroyed many years ago. To escape the destruction, the Great Ruler ordered the construction of -"

"Yes, yes, we know all that," the Doctor interrupted. "It's all in the history books. The pirates, if you please."

The Master wandered away. The captain watched him out of the corner of his eye. "They have threatened to destroy the entire fleet unless we hand over our entire supply of Carugelium."

"So do it," the Master answered, not looking back. "That is, if you think they are powerful enough to accomplish such a task."

"But that is our power source! Our supply is already running dangerously low and we've not yet found a suitable planet!"

The Master shrugged. "Better to drift in space than be blasted into atoms, I always say."

The captain's anger was mounting. "And what would we _breathe _while we're drifting in space? Our oxygen generator runs off of Carugelium as well!"

"Well, now, that is unfortunate."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Master, must you always be so defeatist?"

"Defeatist?" The Master looked back over his shoulder with a smile. "Hardly. Defeatism suggests a perceived inability to change the situation. You and I both know that's not the case."

"Isn't it?"

The Master chuckled. "It's a band of bloody pirates! Telepathic, if I had to guess. What are they, Wistoni? Grelogin? Sensorite?"

"Sensorite, in these parts?" the Doctor laughed.

"How do you know they're telepathic?" the captain asked warily.

"Because I've been looking around your ship." The Master gestured around him, and let his hand rest on the console. "These controls are fully functional, in and of themselves. Full power, accurate readings, but when I do this..."

"No no! Don't -"

The captain was too slow to stop him from throwing the lever in the opposite direction. Braced for something jarring and disastrous, he looked up slowly as nothing happened.

"Instead of sending us careening into the nearest burning sun, the ship merely keeps right on flying in perfect formation."

The Doctor was glaring at the dramatic display, but the Master seemed pleased.

"I know a thing or two about telepathy, Captain," the Master said. "And a thing or two about your ship."

"About my ship?" the captain said tensely, defensive and shaky. "What do you know about my ship?"

"That it's about to belong to a band of pirates?"

"Master, please," the Doctor interrupted. "Stop."

The Master shrugged and turned away. After a moment of silence, the Doctor turned and faced the ship's captain. "What he means, what we know about your ship, is that it is sustained by a living consciousness, which is susceptible to telepathic infiltration."

"Who are you?" the captain asked with a hint of fear. "How do you know so much?"

"Oh, come on," the Master interjected again. "That wasn't too hard to figure out."

"Carugelium has no capacity in and of itself to be converted into an energy source," the Doctor explained. "It's what your ship _eats_, in a manner of speaking. So it's a living ship. Uncommon, but not unheard of, certainly. More importantly, it's difficult to identify from afar. But the pirates would have to have known how to - Who did you say they were again?"

The captain swallowed hard. "They're Furolite."

"Furolite! Well, that makes it easy!"

"Makes what easy, Doctor?" There was a hint of challenge in the Master's voice, but curiosity as well.

"All we have to do is create a dampening force field! We can do that easily by wiring the defensive shields of the Tardis with the matrix illumination screening module - bypassing the allocation unit, of course."

"And then what?" The Master was studying him with amusement. "Stay here until they can launch an attack?"

"Oh, it would hardly be necessary. The Furolites run their ships entirely on psyonic power. The disruption would scramble their internal communications circuits but good. Sort of like a... telepathic electromagnetic pulse."

"We could leave, then."

"Yes, of course."

"And arrive back on Gallifrey just in time to face a trial for a blatant violation of the Non-Interference Policy."

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Gallifrey," the captain repeated. "I have heard of Gallifrey!"

"Yes, I should hope so," the Master said, casting him a sideways glance.

"But that means you're Time Lords!"

Now it was the Master's turn to roll his eyes before directing his answer, dripping with sarcasm, at the Doctor. "Clever, isn't he?"

"Master, you know as well as I do that whether this colony continues or ceases right here and now makes no difference in the future course of events. This is hardly a fixed point in the Web of Time; it's just a colony ship!"

"Precisely. So why get involved?"

"Because, Master. They're _people_. They're innocent people on an innocent ship being raided by pirates."

"The universe is full of innocents, Doctor."

"Perhaps it is. What's your point?"

"Are you going to save them all?"

"No. But I _am_ going to save this lot."

The Master studied him for a moment, then shook his head slowly as he turned away. "Be it on your own head, then. I'll have no part of it."

Rose was so focused on him as he walked away, she barely noticed the room around her fading again. Back on the unfamiliar grey ship, the woman was missing from the scene this time. It was only the Doctor, this time accompanied by a tall man in an enormous metal mask.

"I killed them all!" the masked man admitted with deep remorse. "I deserve my exile, Doctor."

"Because of the Scintillans?" the Doctor asked. "Because of how you murdered them in the name of scientific progress?"

"Omega."

The voice from directly behind Rose made her jump and spin around in surprise. "Master?" Was he part of the scene? No, he was looking right at her.

He nodded toward the tall, masked man. "His name was Omega. He was one of the very first of our kind."

"I thought you said you couldn't come in here," Rose said, confused.

The Master took a step closer to her, slipping his hands into his pockets. "I said I don't like to do. And that's true." He gave a noticeable shiver. "Being in any one of these rooms is very... unnerving."

She watched him for a moment, then glanced back at the Doctor and Omega. "The first of your kind," she repeated quietly.

"Yes. He and Rassilon worked together to give us the power source we needed to travel through time, among other things. The Eye of Harmony - a self-contained, artificially created black hole, in essence. There's a receptacle on every Tardis - a link back to the source on Gallifrey."

Rose stared. "The Tardis is powered by a black hole?"

"It was. At one point. When Gallifrey was still in the sky."

Rose swallowed. She'd been wondering just how much this filing program that looked like a man really knew about the world outside of the Doctor's head. Now it seemed he at least knew that Gallifrey was gone.

"Omega used a stellar manipulator to detonate a star named Qqaba into a supernova. Omega ended up getting sucked through what would become a black hole and into the universe of antimatter. His ship - this ship around us - became trapped between two universes, in a world of antimatter."

"But he survived?"

"In a manner of speaking." The Master gestured toward the masked figure. "You see him for yourself, don't you?"

"You didn't kill the Scintillans," the Doctor said to Omega. "You've created a fiction. A story in your mind to explain away what happened to you."

"I don't understand," Omega replied, confused.

"Omega believed himself guilty of genocide," the Master informed, hands locked behind his back as he rocked on his heels. "He spent millions of years believing that in one of his experiments, he wiped out an entire race, known as the Scintillans. But he was wrong."

"You didn't kill the Scintillans," the Doctor told Omega. Rose glanced at him as he paused and took a deep breath. "It was me. I killed them."

"You?" Omega sounded as surprised - and as skeptical - as Rose felt. "You're lying."

"Listen to me," the Doctor explained. "There was a Lurman colony just outside the Stegoran Asteroid Belt. I arrived there whilst they were being attacked by a band of pirates. The Lurmans asked me to help them."

"Lies."

"The pirates controlled their ships and weaponry using a form of telepathy so I made a dampening force field to stop their equipment functioning. Unfortunately, what I didn't know was that the Asteroid belt was also home to the Scintillans. They were beings of pure thought, Omega. And I made a terrible mistake. They were completely destroyed."

Rose stared, slowly realizing how the pieces of this scene fit together. Two teenagers - however old they truly were, they seemed very much like teenagers to her - out for a joyride, the Doctor doing what he could to help, just the way he always did. But he had accidentally killed an entire race to save those ships...

"You're a great hero now!"

The woman's voice seemed to come from all around. As the Doctor continued to talk to Omega, Rose could no longer hear what they were saying. Instead, she heard the woman's voice.

"Your name will be a rallying cry for our people during dark times in your future. We can't have it banded around that you committed genocide by accident! Or that that incident subsequently caused another Time Lord to go insane with your guilt and go on a murderous rampage. Think of the scandal."

"Indeed," the Master said dryly, offering his own commentary to the woman's speech.

Rose turned and stared at him for a moment. "That woman. Who is she?"

"Precisely who she said she was," the Master replied. "A member of the Celestial Preservation Agency."

"And it was her job to... to lie? To blame Omega and protect the Doctor?"

As the scene faded to darkness, the Master remained illuminated somehow. Hands still behind his back, he turned and walked slowly away from her. Not sure what else to do, she followed a step behind.

"The rules which governed Gallifreyan politics were designed to do two things," the Master explained. "Firstly, they protect the Web of Time - the Non-Interference Policy, rules against visiting Gallifreyan history, against crossing your own timeline, or coming within a certain temporal range of a pre-established fixed point in time. Some rules can be broken; others can be bent. But some are built into the very fabric of our existence. No Time Lord can know his own future, for instance - not even the Lord President. In spite of the fact that the information may well be contained inside of the Matrix, as one of several probabilities, he simply cannot see it."

"The Matrix?"

"The second rule," he continued, ignoring her, "is designed to protect the Time Lords' supremacy in the larger scheme of the cosmos. There can be no scandal. There can be no question of order and rule, no dissention. Nothing but a bright and shining history - a race of gods, benevolent and always right."

"And the Doctor?" Rose said quietly. "He... protected the Time Lords' supremacy?"

"No." The Master smirked as the hallway slowly materialized around them. "He slaughtered them all."


	12. Chapter Eleven - Friends Inseparable

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

**Friends Inseparable**

"We should be safe here," River said quietly, watching as the Doctor checked the scanner for what had to be the hundredth time in the past ten minutes.

"Yes, I know."

"So what do you keep looking for?"

He didn't answer, just took a deep, slightly shaky breath and paced away. A few solid steps on the grate, then he turned and headed for the console again.

"You can feel her, can't you?" she asked.

"Of course I can. You know I can. I told you I can."

"Where is she?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, wherever it is, she's not enjoying it." She paused, watching as he headed away from the console again. He was going to wear out his shoes if he kept this up for too much longer. "If I didn't know better, I'd say she might even be a bit afraid of you."

"She's in my memories from the Academy."

His icy tone was probably meant to silence River, to derail her train of thought before she said anything more. But now he had her interest, not just her usual concern.

"What memories?"

He heaved a sigh as he walked once more to the console, then turned and leaned back on it, arms crossed and head down. His eyes were fixed on some indiscriminate point on the wall as she waited for him to fill in the blanks.

"I hated that Academy," he said quietly.

She leaned forward, interested. She hadn't really been expecting him to talk, but she certainly wasn't going to argue.

"I never said it, but I hated it there. I was bored out of my mind with all of those rules and regulations. Never ceasing codes of conduct. It made it worse that they knew I was clever. My grades, my behavior, it could convince a few of them that I was a lost cause. But some of them... like my tutor, Barousa... Some of them knew. They knew that I could intellectually blow any of my classmates out of the water. And it _burned _them that they didn't know why - that they couldn't figure out what was so different about me. They were indignant, almost. That my mind was wasted on someone who just couldn't follow all those rules."

She smiled knowingly as he paused. "Don't feel bad," she said softly. "The way I've heard you talk about it, I don't think I could've, either."

"I did try, though. I really, _truly _tried." He sighed deeply as he looked up again, his expression pained. "But I couldn't. And the more I tried, the harder it got. And the more time that went on, my only friend in the world was evolving in the opposite direction."

"What do you mean?"

"The Master." He paused. "It's kind of funny, actually. We pulled each other back and forth, for years. When I didn't care, he cared more than ever. And when I wanted to follow rules, he wanted to break them all."

*X*X*X*

"Nnnh..."

The moan in the darkness was not one of pleasure, but it certainly wasn't pain. It might have just been an acknowledgment. Rose had no way of knowing. Surrounded by darkness - too thick for even shadows - she couldn't identify which direction the sound was coming from.

"What are you doing?" That was the Doctor's voice, she was pretty sure. He sounded tired, as if only half-awake.

"Anything I want."

"Master..." He sighed audibly, a sound that was mixed with a groan. "You shouldn't be here. Not like this."

"And there you go with those rules again. One of these days, you're going to learn to say the hell with the rules."

"I've already broken plenty."

"Ah, but not nearly enough of the ones that really count."

"And which would those be?"

"The ones that _don't _get you caught."

The Doctor laughed - a carefree, relaxed sound. "If it's worth doing, it's worth the consequences."

"Yes, but not getting caught means you can go on doing them, over and over again."

"Since when has getting caught ever deterred you from trying a second time?"

"Or you."

"Master?"

"Doctor?"

"Get out of my bed before I shove you onto the floor."

Now it was the Master's turn to laugh. But the bed creaked as he rose, and slowly the scene came into shadowed light as the Doctor opened his eyes.

"You seem very tired this morning."

The Doctor groaned as the Master pulled aside the thick curtains, letting the blinding light pour into the room. "Must you really do that?"

"Might I remind you that you have class in an hour."

"That gives me another forty-five minutes to sleep."

"Where were you all night, anyway? I didn't even hear you come in, but I know it was closer to dawn than to sunset."

"Alloira."

"Ah, pretty girl," the Master said with a smile, pulling the day's clothes out of the closet. He'd just showered, and was still wrapped only in a towel. "Stupid as a box of rocks, but pretty."

The Doctor rolled his eyes as he sat up and leaned forward. "She is not."

"What, stupid? Or pretty?"

The Doctor glared.

"Did you _hear _her presentation on mononeucleaic reproductive life forms?" The Master made a face. "I thought she would never stop talking."

"Stop it. She's nowhere near your class level. We both know that."

"Or yours."

"Actually, she's above mine."

The Master laughed. "That's because you're a bloody fool."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Do we really have to do this again?"

"Love her if you must, Doctor. But she will never amount to anything, and you know it."

Swinging his feet to the floor, the Doctor looked up, watching with amusement as the Master turned his back and dressed quickly.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I would say the Master is jealous."

"Ha!" Buttoning his shirt, he turned with a smile. "Hardly. We both know how this ends."

"Oh? How does it?"

"Someday in the not-too-distant future, you grow terribly bored with Lady Alloira and with much guilt and self-loathing, settle for her until she'll no longer settle for you. Then you'll either find another or you'll finally cave in, borrow a Tardis, and find another one of your off-world love interests to pine over."

The Doctor scowled. "Stop it. That happened only once."

"And it hasn't happened again because you haven't had a _chance_," the Master continued, not stopping. "At least, not unless you want to risk expulsion."

"Expulsion," the Doctor repeated dryly, lowering his eyes to stare at the floor. "Now wouldn't that be ironic."

The Master tipped his head curiously as he studied his friend. "You know something, Doctor? I almost wish you would."

"What, get expelled?"  
"No, not that." The Master chuckled. But the Doctor only frowned back at him as he stood and walked to his own closet.

"I don't know what you see in them," the Master continued, amused. "But those alien women do seem to make you happy."

"Well, you certainly sound as if you've got me all figured out."

"Oh, come on, Doctor. I know you."

"Yes, you seem to think so."

The Master laughed as he walked came closer, stopping only inches behind him. "I know everything about you. How you think, how you feel, the things you want and need that you can't tell anyone else."

The Doctor turned, nose to nose with the man who'd been standing behind him. The Master licked his lips before he continued with a smile. "The things we only speak about in the dark."

"Don't flatter yourself, Master. There's plenty about me that you don't know."

"I don't think I like Alloira."

Raising a brow at the sudden shift in topic, the Doctor took a step back. "Why is that?"

"She makes you entirely too serious."

"Again," the Doctor smirked, "jealousy."

"I have a Tardis."

The Doctor blinked at the second abrupt topic switch. It took a moment for him to process what he'd heard. "What?"

"Free and clear."

"How?"

"My father's. He's back, for a few weeks. We could take it for a ride after class and be back in time for dinner."

The Doctor considered it, but only briefly. "We could be caught the moment we leave the atmosphere."

"Probably. But we wouldn't _really _be breaking any rules. It belongs to my father. He would much rather say he loaned it to us than risk the scandal of our having simply taken it."

"What kind is it?"

"Type B, T-39. Mach 2."

The Doctor laughed. "Six man crew!"  
"Do you think?"

"This from the man who laughed at my flying a 30!"

"Well, there's two of us now."

"Two for six, one for four... you're almost as crazy as I am."

"Oh, no, Doctor. I'm much crazier."

The Doctor eyed him for a long moment as he stepped in even closer. "Think of it, Doctor. How long has it been since you've been away from Gallifrey?"

The Doctor swallowed hard. "Years," he admitted quietly.

"All of the universe," the Master whispered. "You and me. No flight plan, no boundaries. Ours for the taking. The Renegade and the Lonely Child."

The Doctor closed his eyes as he felt the thrill run through him. Escape at his fingertips. If they were careful, they might even get away with it.

"Yes."

The Master smiled as he put his hands on either side of the Doctor's head and pulled him in, placing a big, closed kiss on the Doctor's lips. The Doctor made a face as he tipped his head away. "Alright, alright, shove off, will you?"

The Master laughed. Then, with a brilliant smile, he pulled away and turned toward the door.

"Master..."

He turned and found the Doctor standing still, in the same spot.

"We will be in a lot of trouble for this if we're caught."

"_When _we're caught, you mean."

The seriousness lasted for only a second before the Master smiled again. Answering with a smile of his own, the Doctor grabbed his clothes out of the closet and dressed quickly.

*X*X*X*

Rose could smell the salt in the air before her surroundings came into view. She could hear the call of seagulls, and the soft hiss of the waves on the shore. The shifting ground under her feet and the warmth of the sun on her face. She was on a beach. And if it wasn't a beach on Earth, it was on a planet that was remarkably similar. It smelled like Earth on a warm summer's day. The sun felt like Earth's sun. And the people looked human enough.

"I don't know what you see in them," the Master's voice stood out to her even before she could identify him in the scene that was slowly taking shape in front of her. Wandering along the edge of the water, shoeless with his hands in his pockets, he seemed only mildly amused by his surroundings. "Lazy, stupid, primitive animals."

The Doctor smiled to himself as he walked in the surf. He was carrying his shoes, feet sinking into the sand with every step. Nothing could dampen his mood. Beautiful scenery and pure freedom. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a woman's gaze from where she lay in the warm sand, soaking in the sun, and he smiled. She smiled back.

"You would say that, Master," he answered offhandedly.

"Look at them. Look at _you_!" The Master laughed. "Acting like you're one of them!"

"I could've been one of them." The Doctor cast a sideways glance at his friend. "So could you."

"In what way?"

"Well, you could choose to believe it was fate or divine appointment that you were born into the family you were. Or you can choose to believe in pure dumb luck. I find the latter to be more compelling."

The Master rolled his eyes. "You even philosophize like they do."

"And what's wrong with it?"

"Perhaps they were born," he spat the word, "by some stroke of random, dumb luck. But you and I were fashioned, appointed by ourselves. Our own source of divinity."

Now it was the Doctor's turn to roll his eyes. "Must you always be so... superior?"

"Yes."

"Well, that must be exhausting."

Startled by the unexpected voice, both men turned to see a young woman walking a step behind them. Not sure how long she'd been following, the Doctor raised a brow curiously. "What must?"

"Being a source of your own divinity." Her brow furrowed in an exaggerated look of concern. "What happens when the well runs dry?"

"I'm sorry," the Master said, turning to face her, "but who the hell are you?"

"Angela Hartman." She smiled fully as she extended a hand. "And you, your lordship?"

For a long moment, the two of them both stared. Then, they exchanged glances. The Doctor was smiling as he looked back at her and offered a hand. "Hello. I'm the Doctor."

"Oh? Doctor of what?" She shook his hand, then struck a pose, setting her hand back on her hip.

"Just the Doctor."

"Ah, I see. Well, _the Doctor_," she smirked as her gaze raked him up and down blatantly, "I'm the Available."


	13. Chapter Twelve - Angela

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

**Angela**

"Angela Hartman." The voice echoed in the stillness around her even before the hallway had come back into view. "The Doctor's all-time favorite Earth girl."

Rose frowned as she turned to glare at the Master. "I really wish you would stop sneaking up on me."

"He's always had a thing for Earth girls," the Master continued, undeterred. "But Angela was his undoing. His obsession."

"Obsession?"

"Yes, you could call her that." He took a few slow steps, and Rose followed, a half step behind him. "Within a few months, he was in love. And from that point on, not much mattered to him anymore. Not his future, not his responsibilities. Not even who and what he was."

Rose frowned. "What do you mean?"

The Master paused beside one of the doors, spun with his back to the wall, and gestured with a smile for Rose to proceed. She eyed the door carefully for a moment before looking back at him. "What is it?" she asked warily.

"One of those happy memories you wanted to see."

"Of her?"

"Yes."

Rose hesitated. It was something of an unspoken rule in a relationship to not talk about past lovers. Did she really want to _see _it? To see him happy and in love with someone else? Of course, she wasn't really here just to see things she wanted to see. She was here to help him, to wake up these memories. And if this was a good memory for him, regardless of what was inside, it was surely kinder to him than awakening all of the bad memories.

"Second thoughts?"

The Master's voice was almost taunting. She cast him a quick, uncertain look.

"It's just... when I'm in there... I know everything he's thinking."

"Of course you do. They're his memories."

"Yes, but... If he's in love with her..."

The Master smirked slightly, but didn't answer. With a renewed determination, she took a deep breath and put her shoulders back as she reached for the door. She could do this. Besides, it wasn't really her Doctor. He looked nothing like him, sounded nothing like him. Well, he did on occasion. But it was easy to forget that they were the same if she focused on the differences. He was different. She could remember that. Slowly, she placed her hand on the door and pushed it open.

*X*X*X*

Television - even in holographic projection - was one of the less interesting forms of entertainment the Doctor had encountered throughout the universe. But after dinner and drinks and "a night on the town," it had been Angela's first suggestion for how to spend the rest of the evening. All things considered, it wasn't a bad idea. The television might have bored him, but the warmth of her leaning on him certainly didn't.

"Well," she finally declared as the credits rolled on the first show and the announcer tried to entice them with the next, "I think I'm off to bed."

"Alright." He smiled at her as she stood and gave him a peculiar look. "Good night."

She left the TV on and the remote on the sofa as she headed off down the hallway. His smile only seemed to grow once she was gone. Over the past few months - weeks, for her - he'd come and gone from her world at least a dozen times. With every opportunity that presented itself, he'd found ways of begging and borrowing and bartering for a night of freedom, here and there.

Gallifreyan time could not be navigated; they always knew how long he'd been gone. He always had to be aware of it. If - when - he did get caught, it was to his benefit to be able to point out that he didn't miss anything important. It was also to his benefit to point out that his grades had not suffered since he'd begun taking these trips to Earth. In fact, they'd improved. After all, the work was easy. And he had incentive now.

"Are you coming or not?"

Startled, he glanced up in the direction of the hallway Angela had disappeared down a few minutes ago. She had returned to the mouth of it in a floor length robe, arms crossed, watching him curiously.

"Coming?" he asked, confused. "No, I'm not tired."

She chuckled to herself, and pushed off the wall, crossing the a few steps towards him. He leaned back against the sofa as she stood directly in front of him, took hold of his shoulders, and knelt over him, her legs on either side of his.

"You're a bit slow, aren't you?"

Confused, his brow furrowed. Slow? He'd been called a lot of things before, but "slow" was not one of them. He was just about to ask her what she meant when she leaned closer and slid one hand into his hair, kissing him deeply. His thoughts scattered, the way they always did when she was so close, and he slid one arm behind her back instinctively. Instinctively? Where had that instinct sprung from?

His other hand was tangled with hers, and she guided it slowly into the front of the loosely tied robe, slowly up her thigh, all the way to her hip. Startled by the fact that he felt nothing beneath the robe, he pulled back from the kiss and stared at her. His thoughts were suddenly racing. The topic of sex hadn't ever come up with her before, and he hadn't even thought of what he would say when it did. Now he found himself stammering, searching for words as he watched her study him with confusion.

"What's the matter?"

"Uh..." What the bloody hell was he supposed to say to her?

In the hesitating, tense silence that followed, her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, my God, you're gay." "What? No!"

She moved her hand away quickly from his, but he didn't pull back. He was still trying to find words. Thankfully, they were coming easier now.

"No, it's just... I'm not..." He sighed as he looked away. "Oh, human sexuality is so complicated."

"_Human _sexuality?" she repeated, noting the emphasis.

"I'm not gay. I'm not... either, really. I've..." He took a deep breath and let it out slow. "I've never done this before."

Her eyes widened. "You're serious?"

"Is that bad?"

"No!" she corrected quickly. "No, it's just... It's surprising."

"Why?"

"Well, you're..." She laughed tightly, sitting back a little but still straddling him. "Look at you. You're good looking, you're suave, you're... ridiculously smart."

"Yeah, well..." He shifted a bit uncomfortably. "Where I come from, there's no need for sex. My people reproduce asexually; they have for millions of years. So that drive, that biological instinct is... suppressed. Call it evolution, if you'd like. The things we don't need get filtered out through the generations."

He looked at her steadily as the realization sunk in.

"Oh, my God, you were serious, weren't you?" she finally whispered. "You said you were from another planet. I thought you were joking."

He laughed. "Angela, I have two hearts. You've felt them both."

"I thought it was some sort of... genetic defect or something."

"Defect!"

He laughed openly at the insult. From the way she smiled back, he knew she hadn't intended it as such. He wasn't offended, just amused. As the silence settled around them, she lowered her eyes and bit her lip. "Wow."

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"So you... aren't interested, then."

"I didn't say that," he quickly corrected.

"Well, are you?"

Studying her for a moment, he finally slid his hand a little further up, to the small of her back, pulling her in closer as he lowered his head and turned his face into her neck. He breathed in deep, the scent of pheromones - strange and unfamiliar but somehow... enticing. She was warm and soft and distinctly feminine, and as his eyes locked on hers again, he could feel the unfamiliar response of his body to hers. He raised a hand to touch the side of her face lightly, and she smiled as she leaned into his touch, letting her eyes slide closed. The sight of her, relaxed and content, made him smile back before leaning in to kiss her gently.

Her hands were roaming - down his chest and then under his shirt, lifting it over his head. Following her lead, and not completely oblivious to the form and style of this dance, he slid his hands back to push her robe off her shoulders as the tie fell apart. She arched into him, robe catching on her arms, and his eyes slid closed as he felt the unfamiliar warmth of her skin on his.

He could feel his breathing deepening, pulling oxygen from the air that was thick with her salty, complex scent. His body was responding slowly, an odd stirring in his groin that tingled and craved touch. He'd done enough reading from a young age to understand the mechanics of what was happening, but he'd never really thought about how it would feel. He wasn't entirely sure yet if he liked it. It seemed very... awkward. After millions of years of evolution, his body just wasn't made for this anymore, even if he - unlike every other Time Lord he knew - was a product of it.

"Are you okay?"

He opened his eyes slowly and found her watching him. Her breathing was deeper too, but her eyes were filled with passion he didn't feel. Instead, he felt awkward confusion, and that unusual sensation he was so unsure of was subsiding. But the way she was looking at him...

"Do you trust me?" he whispered.

She was caught off guard by the question. But she quickly smiled, raising her hand to bury it in his hair. "Yes, of course."

Swallowing hard, well aware of her increased arousal from that question alone, he watched her eyes as he slowly let go of her waist and brought his hands up on either side of her face, touching his fingers to her temples. "Let me in."

She stared at him in confusion for a moment. "I don't -"

"Contact."


	14. Chapter Thirteen - Awakened

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

**Awakened**

Angela's confused protest cut off with a gasp as he slipped through her weak defenses, into her mind and her emotions, everything she was thinking and feeling. She was human, and she couldn't answer his initiation with her own mind. But it was enough for him to simply have open access to hers. His eyes rolled back as he fed off of her desire, her need, her arousal. Suddenly, that tingling felt familiar and right and natural. The warmth of her chest on his made his hearts beat faster. His lips craved hers. Moving his hands back into her hair, he pulled her closer and claimed her mouth in a deep, passionate kiss.

The jolt that ran through him was powerful. It was powerful to her, and he felt every bit of her arousal. More than that, he was beginning to feel his own. Her taste, her scent, the way her body felt against his - he was acutely aware of all of it, and suddenly, he wanted more. Her hands roaming over his shoulders, down his chest, made his skin tingle. He mimicked her touch, down from her collarbone, between her breasts, along her lower ribs. He wanted to explore her, to know her. And as he slowly withdrew from the kiss and felt her tremble slightly, he smiled. He wanted to feel more of _that_.

"What did you do?" she whispered breathlessly, kissing his jaw, down to his neck.

"Do you like it?"

"It's like everything is more... I can smell, taste, feel... _everything_."

He smiled as he followed her lead, kissing her neck, feeling her pulse with his tongue. He didn't want to explain the basics of telepathy to her - the connection that gave her access to his senses and gave him access to her feelings of pleasure - and right now, he wasn't sure he could. His thoughts were fragmented as her nails raked his chest - pain and pleasure in equal amounts. He moaned involuntarily as he gave himself over to the sensations, the need and the excitement, the heat and the animalistic drive to be inside of her.

But it was more than that, too. There were feelings he hadn't expected, hadn't thought of. The love and intimacy he felt when she was near was somehow amplified. A protective drive, and a feeling of safety, as if he were himself protected. There was trust and openness and vulnerability that he'd only felt thus far towards the Master, his closest friend. And really, had he ever felt it to this extent? This was more than the animal mating ritual it was reputed to be. Suddenly, he understood what the humans meant when they called it "making love."

As she slowly withdrew from the warm, soft kisses, he opened his eyes and locked gazes with her. Her hands were working at his slacks, slowly unfastening them. He lowered his own hands to help her. He wanted them off. He wanted her hands on him, easing that need for touch. He dug his heels into the carpet as he lifted his hips to push the pants down and off. Erect and throbbing, responsive in a way he'd never been in his life, his breathing was quick and shallow as he settled back again, watching her and waiting for her touch.

The light, barely-there caress of her fingertips made his eyes slide closed and drew a soft, involuntary moan from his lips. He could feel his muscles twitching, nerves screaming with pleasure as she stroked him slowly.

"Angela..."

"Doctor?"

He opened his eyes slowly and stared up at her, perched over him, just out of reach. Licking his lips to bring moisture back to his mouth, he let his eyes wander over her slowly - the soft rise of her breasts, the curves of her hips. His fingers followed the path of his eyes, exploring her curiously and finally tightening his hold just enough to pull her closer, pull her down on him.

He shuddered with pleasure as her warmth encased him. There were no words, no thoughts, only pleasure and instinct. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that instinct couldn't be his own. But it didn't matter. Right now, nothing mattered but the heat and intimacy and slow, steady rhythm that their bodies naturally set. Unaware of everything but the woman in his arms, he moved with her, tipping his head away as he felt her kisses on his neck, his own hands wandering over her back, her sides, every inch of her warm, soft skin that he could touch.

As slow, intimate minutes passed, he felt the build, the tightening, the tension. He felt the way she rose in his arms and the scrape of her teeth on his neck. His own pleasure and hers, mixed and mingled, together as one. He felt it build, and suddenly realized he'd gone too far to stop it even if he wanted to do. He groaned as he pressed up, holding her tightly to him as he released inside of her. He heard her whimper, felt her nails digging into his shoulders as she shook with relief and finally fell forward, breathing heavily, resting her head on his shoulder.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Neither spoke. Then, finally, the Doctor resumed the slow, gentle stroking up and down her back. The connection between them severed by the intensity, he couldn't feel her anymore. But he didn't need to. He could feel his own pleasure now, his own relief and relaxation and pure, happy contentment.

"Are you alright?" he whispered.

"Yes."

She took a few slow breaths, easing down, then pulled away slowly to look at him.

"You know, for someone who's never done that before, you're remarkably good at it."

He smiled and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I'm a fast learner."

With a quiet laugh, she leaned in to nuzzle him gently, pausing with her lips against his ear. His breath caught as she drew the lobe between her teeth, pulling gently.

"Would you like to move to the bedroom and do it again?"

*X*X*X*

The Doctor could feel River's eyes on him. He'd been able to feel the weight of her stare for a while now, as Rose had been wandering through his memories of a lifetime so very long ago. Not wandering, really. She seemed to be caught in one very specific memory.

Connected to the emotions of those memories but not the images themselves, River probably wasn't aware of _why_ she was looking at him like that. But he knew. Rose's proximity to - even presence inside of - long forgotten memories brought them to mind in sharp distinction. He remembered everything about that night, with Angela. And he remembered Rose well enough to know why River, influenced by her reflections and emotions, was trying not to look at him.

"Are you alright?"

It was an unnecessary question - perhaps even a tiny bit sadistic when he considered that he knew River would never admit to the feelings she had right now. But he couldn't help it. On the rare occasion that he got the chance to rib her the way she always seemed to do to him, he was simply compelled.

"Oh, yes. Just fine." Her predictable lie was covered with a tight smile and a quick look away, as if she could prevent him from noticing the way she'd been staring at him. "Why do you ask?"

The question was so innocent, it made him chuckle as he stood from the jump seat and circled the console, stepping up behind her. "No reason."

Her body was warm, face a bit flushed as she stood completely still. "What about you?" she asked, a little tightly as she gripped the edge of the console. "Feeling alright?"

"Oh yes."

He leaned in, just close enough to barely touch her hair as he peered over her shoulder at the monitor. He breathed deep, drawing in the scent of her pheromones, and watched her reflection in the screen as she clenched her jaw and shut her eyes tight. She wanted to curse at him, he knew. But they both knew it would only make matters worse if she did. So instead, she remained silent.

Hiding his smile by sheer force of will, he glanced over the main information screen of the Tardis. "Is it just me, or is it getting a bit warmer in here?"

Eyes opening, she turned her head to fix him in an intense glare. "I hate you."

"Do you now?" he teased. Reading the frustration in her eyes at that moment was the most fun he'd had all day. Though leaning in to kiss her, holding her hair tightly to keep her steady, was a close second.


	15. Chapter Fourteen - Conflict

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

**Conflict**

Rose saw the Master - at least, she assumed it was the Master - leaning against the wall in the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked different - older, slightly greying - and yet still obviously himself. As her surroundings came more clearly into view, she took a deep breath, trying to process all that she had seen since the last time she'd stood in this hallway for a moment of reflection. When the scenes blended one into the next, it was so easy to forget her own presence. It was like dreaming - like taking the place of someone else in a detailed dream and forgetting that she wasn't really who she thought she was. Finding herself in the hallway was like waking up from that dream, and trying to process who she'd become and what she'd done in that dream.

"Um, well, that was..."

The Master turned to watch her, expressionless. "Enlightening, no doubt?"

Taking another deep, clarifying breath, Rose gave a tight smile. "That's one way to look at it."

"Not terribly out of the ordinary, though." He pushed off the wall and gave her a quick look up and down before he began walking again at a leisurely pace. "He always did seem to relish every opportunity to act like one of you. Still does, if his memories of _you _are any indication."

Raising an eyebrow, she looked up at him. "And just what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Take it however you'd like."

Irritated, Rose stopped walking, setting her hands on her hips. "No, why don't _you _tell me what you mean by it?"

He walked a step further, then turned, raising a brow. "My, you do get tetchy, don't you? Perhaps you'd like to navigate your own way through these halls if I'm upsetting you."

Rose sighed. That was the last thing she wanted, and he knew it. She grit her teeth as she forced her answer. "I can't. I wouldn't have a clue where I was going."

"Then let's move on, shall we?"

She followed a few steps behind as he continued down the hallway. Her head was swimming with thoughts and emotions, some of them her own and some of them a memory of the Doctor's. She hadn't thought that witnessing him with another woman would make her feel anything but jealous. Instead, it had left her with a myriad of emotions she was still trying to sort through. He'd loved her. And somehow, that was incredibly beautiful.

"So that girl," she glanced back the way they'd come. "She was his first love?"

The Master shrugged as he slipped his hands in his pockets. "The first human he bedded, if that's what you mean."

Rose tilted her head and frowned at him slightly, forgetting for a moment just how alien he was. "No, that's not at all what I mean."

"You humans have very complicated views of love and attraction, to say nothing of sexuality. He said he was in love with her. I asked nothing more."

"Yes, but you're not really... the man in the memories. You're part of the Doctor. You know what he thought, what he felt."

"I know what he thinks I should know and feel how he thinks I should feel. Nothing more."

She sighed, chewing the inside of her lip for a moment as she considered more of the questions in her mind. "How long were they together?"

"Time is relative. And meaningless, for that matter. I hardly see the point in a question like that."

She closed her eyes and took another calming breath. "Can you not just answer a question simply? Even if it's 'I don't know.'"

He glanced at her with a look of contempt. "Would it ease your tired little mind if I said I didn't know?"

"Look." Frustrated but trying to keep her cool, Rose stopped walking and stared straight at the man beside her. "I'm sorry that I'm just a stupid human that has to ask a bunch of dumb questions. And I'm sorry you're stuck in the head of a man who's fond of stupid humans. But I'm trying to wrap my mind around everything I've seen and it would be extremely helpful if you would just answer the damn questions!"

The Master eyed her for a long moment before finally answering. "He was with her for years. Until he was almost ready to graduate from the Academy, in fact. He liked to think that she kept him focused on good behavior, but she was more likely responsible for the mess he made of his grades and his class standing. His entire reputation, really."

Rose let out a long breath, relieved that she finally had a simple response. "Thank you."

He nodded.

"I'm guessing you mean she ruined his reputation because she was human. And that's... beneath you, right?"

"No," he answered simply. "She had no bearing on his reputation per se. It was his own actions."

"What actions?"

The Master hesitated for a long moment before answering, his voice cold and hard. "She was, as I said before, his obsession."

*X*X*X*

Lying on the soft red grass, the Doctor's eyes had been closed for the past twenty minutes. But he wasn't asleep. Lost in his thoughts with a smile on his face, he was soaking in the warmth of the dual suns overhead. He could feel the rays on his face, and he knew the moment they were blocked by someone standing over him.

"Did you see the grades from the psychokinetic reconstruction module?"

He shielded his eyes from the brightness around them as he looked up at the Master. "No. Are they posted?"

"Rani kicked your ass. She set the curve a full fifty points higher than you _or_ I."

"That's nice." He closed his eyes again.

"That's _nice_?" The Master laughed as he sat down, legs crossed. "Since when? You actually studied for that, remember?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Rani's interested in neurological biochemistry. Let her set the curve in her own field. What difference does it make?"

"What's gotten into you lately? Running off without telling anyone where you're going? Cutting class?"

The Doctor laughed. "I've been doing that for years!"

"Yes, but now you're not even being careful about it. Are you _trying _to get expelled?"

"Maybe."

"Doctor!"  
"Alright, so I'm not _trying_, but it's not as if I really care."

"And why not? What the bloody hell is the matter with you lately?"

The Doctor sighed and glanced over at him with a half grin. "Angela."

The Master groaned as he rolled his eyes. "Oh, I should have known. It's always something with you, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"So does this mean you're not interested in Alloira anymore?"

The Doctor looked back up at the sky. "Alloira is a very nice girl."

"Oh, here it comes."

"She has a great mind."

"But?"

The Doctor smiled. "But she's not Angela."

The Master's brow furrowed. Apparently his goading and eye rolling wasn't making the desired impact. "Alloira is an idiot. But at least she was capable of higher brain function."

"Ah, but Angela is smart."

"She's an alien."

"And she's funny."

"You're kidding, right?"

"And _gorgeous_."

"You must be kidding."

"Oh, that body!"

"Bloody hell, you're not kidding."

The Doctor laughed softly. "Master, you don't even know her."

"I don't have to. She's an alien. An earthling at that!"

"So?"

The Master shook his head as he looked away. "Well, I suppose it's comforting to know that at least _she's _only temporary, too."

Now it was the Doctor's turn to roll his eyes. "What makes you think that?"

The Master smirked. "All your alien infatuations are temporary."

"No. Angela's different."

"Oh, is she?"

"Yes. I love her."

"Of course you do. You always do."

The Doctor couldn't quite hold a glare. He was too busy smiling at the thought of her. "Oh, but this is different, my friend! This is it! The one!"

"The one _what_?" the Master demanded. Suddenly, his voice was harder, accusative. "The one you're going to go to the dean and explain that you're in love with? I'm sure they'll take to that idea quite well."

"The hell with the dean. I'll take it straight to the High Council."

"The High Council! Are you mad!"

The Doctor laughed.

"How do you even propose to get an audience with them?"

"Wait long enough, and they'll probably come to me."

"What makes you say that?"

"Call it a hunch."

The Master frowned deeply. "Doctor, what is all this supposed to achieve? So you fail out of school because you're pining over an alien and then, what? Catch a ride to Earth and live out the rest of your miserable life there?"

The Doctor propped himself up on his elbows and leveled his eyes at his friend. There was disgust in the Master's voice - the kind he rarely used with the Doctor. It was curious, and a bit concerning. "You seriously think I'm going to wait?"

"What!"

"Why should I? I love her, she loves me and I want to spend the rest of -"

"Your life with her?" the Master interrupted, talking over him.

The Doctor glared briefly. The point was well made, although he didn't like it. "No, but _her _life, at least."

"And after her fifty years, what then? You drop out of Academy now, you'll have to face that decision someday."

"It's not something I've decided yet. Besides, I have my whole life ahead of me. I can spend fifty years with her and be back in time to finish out my training long before my first life cycle has finished."

The Master glared. "Doctor, you're a bloody fool."

"And you've always known it."

The Doctor smiled back, the slightest bit relieved as his friend looked away. He wasn't really a fool, and they both knew it. They both knew he wouldn't be allowed to simply run off that way, a renegade Time Lord with only half his Academy training finished. There would be hell to pay if he tried. He was going to have to come up with some sort of plan if he intended to be with Angela, and he had no such plan. But there was no harm in dreaming.

"There's a biochemical engineering test tomorrow," the Master interrupted his thoughts. "Have you forgotten?"

"Um, well, no, of course not." He frowned. "Why?"

"Well, you haven't seemed to really give a damn about your grades lately. Just wondering if you're planning to _fail_ it since it's certainly not your strongest subject."

"Of course I'm not planning to fail! I've just had more important things to think about."

"Oh, of course. Important things."

The Doctor raised a brow at the tone. It was almost defeatist - definitely not something he was used to hearing from the Master. He let the silence linger for a moment before speaking quietly, as non-confrontational as he could manage.

"Your turn, Master. What's gotten into _you _lately?"

The Master sighed. "I spent three days on Alcaray while you were off falling in love." His tone hardened a bit as he continued. "Probably not even long enough for you to realize I'd left."

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Master; of course I knew you had left."

"Did you?" The Master raised a brow, clearly skeptical. But he didn't wait for a response. "I could've used your help, you know."

"My help? With what?"

Lowering his head to look at his hands, the Master slipped off the ring that was on his finger. "I didn't have the scroll with me; I had to recall it from memory. Which is a hell of a lot harder when you can't even read it. Just an imprinted image."

"Imprinted image?" The Doctor reached for the ring, and his eyes widened in horror once it was in his hand. "Bloody hell, Master, what have you done?"

"Do you like it?" the Master asked with a broad smile.

"What? Why? Why did you get this made?"

"Why not?"

The Doctor stared. "Have you completely lost your mind? Don't you realize what could happen if someone got hold of this?"

The Master rolled his eyes as he looked away.

"Your name, this description, this _image_ - as you call it - that you set into this ring, this is essentially _you_. It is the essence of your person and nature. With the right understanding and technology, someone could use that information to... to clone you!"

"That could be fun. Can you imagine, two of me?"

"Master!"

"What?" the Master challenged rising to his feet. The Doctor stood too With a defiant glare, the Master stared him down. "Could they duplicate me? Resurrect me from the dead? And what's the problem with that, anyway?"

"It could be a very _big _problem if they're resurrecting you for purposes that you would rather not be part of!"

"I would hardly complain if someone wants to give me a new lease on life."

"There are things worse than death."

"Name one!"

The Doctor hesitated, and swallowed hard as he kept his eyes locked on the Master. "Being used to kill."

"That's _your _issue, not mine."

Anger boiling over, the Doctor threw the ring back with a less-than-friendly toss. "So, I'm in the wrong for being in love with a human, but it's completely okay for you to get that made?"

"_This _is not violation of Gallifreyan law. People do it every day!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, since when do you give a damn about Gallifreyan law?"

"Don't talk to me about Gallifreyan law, Doctor," the Master threatened. "You walk a very fine line with the Non-Interference Policy, and I'd say you've officially stepped over it if you've been off doing what I _think _you've been doing with Angela."

The Doctor threw his hands up in frustration and turned away, taking a few steps from his friend. "This isn't about the Non-Interference Policy. This isn't about Earth, and this isn't about Angela. This is about you forging a _ring_ with your name on it."

"Against which there is _no _law!"

"But why would you want to risk that sort of power getting into someone else's hands?"

"Why should I care if it does?"

"How could you not!"

"What the hell has gotten into you? _You're _the one so terrified of anyone finding out who you really are, Doctor, not me!" The Master paused for a moment, eyes narrowing as he smirked, and took a step closer, lowering his voice. "The Lonely Child of Gallifrey, more terrified of himself than of any force in the universe. You _cower_ in fear of your own essence. And in that, you and I couldn't be more different."

The Doctor stared for a long moment, struck. The man standing in front of him knew him better than anyone. He knew those things that hurt the most, and he knew right where to stick the knife. And he was getting vicious, in a way he never had before. Swallowing hard, the Doctor nodded slowly.

"Fine, Master, if this is what you want, so be it."

The Master said nothing in return, only glared. After a long moment of tense silence, the Doctor bowed his head, took a deep breath, and turned to walk away.


	16. Chapter Fifteen - The High Council

**A/N: Need a beta for the next book. Had a computer crash so I have no way of identifying or contacting the excellent people who helped me last time. Any takers?**

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

**The High Council of Gallifrey**

The room was somehow eerie, unfamiliar in spite of the fact that there was nothing distinctly unearthly about it at first glance. The walls were layered - brown and rough-textured underneath, overlaid with muted purple-grey panels that jutted out from the wall in oddly symmetrical peaks. It was an odd choice of style, to say the least, but so were living rooms in the 1960s on Earth. Rose smiled as she considered that. Given the choice, she would have to say that this room was more comfortable than some of the photos she'd seen in her mother's albums.

The walls around her, like the walls of the Tardis, seemed to glow with their own light. In front of her was a platform raised a foot above the rest of the room, and chairs across - one clearly more elevated than the rest. That chair was vacant. In fact, all but two of the chairs were vacant, and the occupants sat comfortably, side by side, talking in hushed tones. Rose watched them for a moment, and jumped in surprise as she felt something brush her arm.

Turning to look at the man beside her, she did a double take. He looked different again, and she marveled at the quick change this time. But he was still recognizably the same man. There were a few distinctive features - the neat goatee, the dark hair, dark eyes - that didn't seem to change. Even with a gold chain around his neck and a gaudy square pendant, hair slicked back and face younger, she was sure he was the same man.

"Where is this place?" she asked quietly.

"The chamber of the High Council of Time Lords," he explained. "The governing body of Gallifrey."

She looked over the chairs again. "Seven of them?"

"The President presides over the Council, aided by the High Chancellor. Then there's the Castellan - in charge of security - and any number of elected councilors with varying degrees of influence. It depends on who's in charge - both in the eyes of the people and behind the scenes."

Rose's gaze drifted to the man and woman seated in their chairs. "So this Council... who are they?"

"On the end is Castellan Marnal - a stickler for the rules, but one of the more careless keepers of security. I'm quite sure you'll be seeing more of him later. The woman is Councilor Loria - from the Doctor's own family, but hardly his advocate. In fact, I think she stirred up a great deal of the trouble he found himself in with the council. She was certainly very good at it."

"Trouble with the council?" Rose repeated. "You mean these people are the government of the whole _planet_, and they've got a problem with the Doctor?"

"To be fair, the whole planet is not very populated."

Rose studied the woman for a long moment, curious. A member of the Doctor's family. She wondered what that meant, exactly.

"What are they waiting for?" she asked quietly. "There must be a reason they're just sitting there."

As if on cue, the doors opened behind them, and the younger, more familiar Master stepped through and nodded his head respectfully towards the two figures who straightened in their chairs. As the guards outside closed the doors behind him, he smiled politely.

"Lord Castellan, Lady Loria."

"Lord Master," Loria answered with a nod of her own.

"To what do I uh... owe this pleasure? It's not every day one is summoned by the High Council."

He was wary of them. Rose could see it in his eyes. But he had plenty of formality to hide it behind as he stepped forward and clasped his hands behind his back.

"We are concerned about your friend, the Doctor. He has been missing now for nearly a week."

The wariness grew. Hesitating a moment, he considered his words carefully before speaking. "Forgive my saying so, but that's not entirely out of character for him," he finally answered. "And in any case, I'm not sure why it warrants the concern of the High Council."

"We shall decide what warrants our concern, Lord Master, thank you."

He bowed his head. "Apologies, Lord Castellan. I meant no disrespect."

"The time capsule he..." Now it was Loria's turn to choose her words carefully, "borrowed had been temporarily decommissioned because its tracking system was damaged."

The Master nodded slowly as he put the pieces together. "Ah, so you don't know where he is."

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught Rose's attention, and she turned to watch as the older Master - from the hallway - crossed the room slowly and sat down comfortably in the elevated President's chair. From there, he continued to watch comfortably.

"So... why does this concern me? Or you, for that matter."

"Operating a capsule with a damaged tracking system is a violation of Gallifreyan law."

"Yes, well, I'll certainly keep that in mind."

"We would like him returned to Gallifrey," the Castellan finally said plainly. "You are in the best position to assist us in this."

The Master remained very still as his eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. "Why? Just because the tracking system is damaged doesn't mean you can't recall him to Gallifrey."

"In order to recall a time capsule, a certain protocol must be followed."

"And what's preventing you from following it?"

Councilor Loria sighed. "We do not wish to make a spectacle of him." She paused. "Not this time."

The Master hesitated. "Why? What has he done?"

"I'm afraid we're not at liberty to say."

"Well, it must be pretty bad if _you're _getting involved."

Neither of the two councilors answered. He looked back and forth between them, hesitating for a long moment as his mind raced over all the possibilities. He would get no further information out of them, he was sure. Finally, he clasped his hands behind his back and lowered his head a fraction, running his tongue over his teeth. "You will provide me with a Tardis?"

"Yes."

"What type?"

"What type would you like?"

The Master looked up suddenly, eyes locked on Loria. "You know, this all seems very benevolent of you," he observed. There was a bitterness in his voice that hadn't been there before. "Are there more conditions to this assignment than what I am being told?"

"You are to find the Doctor and return him to Gallifrey."

"And if I fail to do?"

"You will not fail."

"You seem very sure."

"You are his friend. And you are no fool. If he does not report to this council immediately and have his transgressions dealt with and sealed - before they affect his life in ways which we cannot correct - he will face _very_ severe consequences."

"How long do I have?"

"How long do you need?"

The Master ran his tongue over his teeth again, eyes narrowing into a glare fixed on Councilor Loria. "You know, you are right about one thing," he said low. "He _is _my friend. And if he should refuse to be called to heel, what makes you think that I would ever return without him?"

They exchanged glances with each other, but didn't respond.

"Oh, but you're clever," the Master continued. "I don't know why you're doing this, but I know there is more to it than what you're telling me. You've been frightened and disgusted by me from the moment of my initiation. All of you have. And now to turn me into your errand boy, you hand me a Tardis, free and clear. Oh, just think of the trouble I could get into with that."

"Are you trying to convince us to rescind the offer?" the Castellan asked simply.

"Oh, not at all. But I am curious. And a bit amused. Whatever law he's broken this time, it must make you _very _nervous if you'll resort to trusting me."

The older Master stood from the President's chair as the scene faded out of focus, then into the dark.

"I don't understand," Rose said quietly as he stepped closer. "How can the Doctor have a memory he wasn't there for? It is just the way he envisions it must have happened?"

"It's not that simple." Shoulders back, he walked slowly as the hallway took shape around them again. "The mind of a Time Lord is an infinite thing. The Doctor's, perhaps more so."

"Why more so?"

"Because he's had full access to the Matrix."

She frowned. "That's the second time you've mentioned the Matrix. What is it?"

"The greatest repository of knowledge in the known universe, the combined experiences of every Time Lord who ever lived."

She raised a brow, amused. "So you're telling me that he literally does know everything."

"That depends on how you would define knowledge. When he integrated with the Matrix, he received the information. All of it. But the Matrix itself still serves as the key - the decoding mechanism for that information. He has an indescribable amount of knowledge in his head. But anything he didn't access before Gallifrey, and the Matrix, was destroyed, he will never have the freedom to access."

"Is that the same for all Time Lords?"

"No."

"What made him different?"

The Master chuckled, as if he couldn't fathom how she could be so ignorant. "He was president of Gallifrey."

Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. "He was what!"

"Legally and rightfully. Though that wasn't until much, much later."

Stunned, she wasn't even sure where to begin with the questions that came to mind now.

"To be fair, he never did serve in the office. Far too political for him, I imagine. He had never cared for politics."

Trying to get her thoughts back on track, she spoke hesitantly as she continued. "So... after all of the trouble he caused - because, well, I'm assuming that getting called in front of the High Council means he was causing trouble - they still chose to make him president?"

The Master smiled knowingly. "The events of his former life never came into question during his induction into that role. And it's no surprise, really. Scandal is bad for morale. And he was, at the time, the only rightful candidate. Besides, he was bound to find his way into that position. Destined for it, you might say."

"Destined?"

"Yes, I know, he wouldn't like that term. But it is true. From the moment of his birth, he had the world at his feet. And then he chose to throw it all away..."

*X*X*X*

"For a woman?" River raised a brow as she studied the Doctor carefully. "That surprises me."

"It wasn't just about her," he said quietly, his voice low and resigned. "It was Gallifrey. The laws, the hypocrisy, a world full of megalomaniacs. It always felt wrong to me, but the older I got, the more I _loathed_ it. The harder I tried to fit in, the angrier I was. I don't think I even knew how to love her - not really. She was just something other than Time Lord. That made her precious to me."

River frowned. "She wasn't the first."

"The first what?"

"The first woman you loved. Or thought you loved."

"No, of course not. But she was different."

"Why?"

"Because she was Angela. She was perfect and I was young and stupid and full of angst and delusions of grandeur. I thought I could have anything I wanted if I just concentrated on it hard enough. And I wanted her more than anything."

River was quiet for a moment, considering that. Those early years of his life were never talked about. Not that he ever really reminisced on any life period, but some secrets he kept particularly close to his chest. Listening now to his candid confessions, she was beginning to understand why.

"How did you get to Earth?" she asked. "To see her?"

"Any way I could. And I would stay away as long as I could."

"And they let you?"

"Let me?" He laughed bitterly as he shook his head. "I was caught, threatened, even jailed for a short time. The Master got a kick out of that." He paused as his eyes faded out of focus, staring blindly at the Tardis console. "But you can't control an emotion like love. No matter how hard you try. When it's all you can think about... it controls you."


	17. Chapter Sixteen - With Fists

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

**With Fists**

The sound at the kitchen door to the backyard wasn't a knock. It was the sound of someone pounding with the side of his fist, damn near hard enough to knock the door down. Startled, the Doctor stood without thinking and cast a wary look at Angela as she pulled herself up from the sofa.

"Who the hell could that be at this hour?" she muttered, checking the clock. At nearly midnight, she surely wasn't expecting any visitors.

"Yes, and why are they at the back door?"

With a hand on the small of her back, the Doctor followed a step behind as she went to answer it. He stayed close as she pulled the door open - without even looking; she really was a bit naive - and stared curiously out at the man on her back porch. "Yes?"

It took the Doctor only seconds - a flash of recognition and the challenge of the man's eyes locked on his - to know that this was in no way a social call.

"You," the Master ordered coldly. "Out. Now."

The Doctor pushed Angela aside as gently as possible, ignoring her indignant, "Hey!" and stood in her place, holding the door.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a low voice.

"I said out," the Master repeated. "Unless you want to make a scene in front of your little fuck toy."

The crude, derogative language that sounded frankly laughable coming from a Time Lord, and the brief glare shot in her direction were not so much for the Doctor's benefit as hers. It was a warning to her: stay out of the way. The Master clearly had a particular goal in mind: to draw the Doctor out of the house and into the backyard.

The Doctor glared at him as he spoke to Angela over his shoulder. "I'll be right back. Stay here and do _not_ come outside."

He didn't give her a chance to protest, simply stepped forward, pushing the Master back as he closed the door behind him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he seethed through gritted teeth.

The Master's brows rose at the challenge. "I've been called on the carpet to account for your actions - in front of the High Council, no less! - and I didn't even know where the bloody hell you were because you've been off the radar for almost a week!"

The Doctor frowned. "Why the hell are they making you account for my actions?"

"Why don't you ask them? They're dying to talk to you."

"You seemed to find me just fine, I don't see why they can't."

The Master growled audibly as he stepped forward, crouching in on the Doctor's personal space. "I knew where to look. And as a courtesy to you and the alien you've imprinted in there, I didn't share that information with them. And you're damn lucky they _didn't _recall that Tardis without you in it!"

The Doctor stood toe-to-toe with his friend, eyes blazing. He was in no mood to back down. In fact, he leaned in closer. "And I suppose you want me to thank you for your 'courtesy.' For coming here, in the middle of the night, to my girlfriend's house, and scaring her?"

The Master shoved him, hard, a step back towards the door. "Back off! Before I do a hell of a lot more than scare her."

"You wouldn't dare," the Doctor threatened.

"You think not?"

Rising to the bait, and not willing to be pushed around any further, the Doctor pulled his fist back. The Master let the blow land - really, he didn't have much of a choice - but retaliated just as quickly, grabbing the front of the Doctor's shirt to pull him off balance as his own fist came in. Holding tightly to each other's clothes, they stumbled down the remaining steps and onto the grass, grappling and fighting with all the energy they had.

"Where the hell do you get off threatening her!" the Doctor growled, seething, through gritted teeth.

"Where do you get off _imprinting _her?"

"Why do you care?"

"I don't! But the Council _does_! And you're not the only one under scrutiny for it!"

It took a surprising amount of effort to speak through the gasps for air and the blows that made it hard to focus on anything but retaliation.

"Oh, please! You expect me to believe this is all because of the Council?"

"It's the Council that expects you to obey the law! You and I both know you're not bloody _capable_ of that!"

"That's my problem then, isn't it?"

"They've made it my problem. And you're damn right I'm making it yours!"

Bruised and bleeding and breathing so hard they were both nearly shaking, they finally pushed away from each other and crawled, heaving, to their knees a safe distance apart. Spitting blood from his split lip, the Master wiped his mouth roughly with the back of his hand and looked up, eyes on the Doctor, ready to go another round just as soon as he caught his breath. Glaring back, the Doctor wiped at the blood gushing from his nose and sat on the bottom step, tensed and ready in case the Master pounced.

But he didn't.

As their breathing gradually slowed, the threat lessened. Finally, the Doctor focused his attention on stopping the bleeding. "So what's the real reason you didn't tell them where I am?"

"Oh, fuck you."

Still breathing hard, the Master turned and flopped back against the tree nearest the steps, sitting with his knees bent in front of him, hearts pounding in his ears. Still full of adrenaline but with no more energy to fight, he kept one eye on the Doctor as he felt his lip again, then turned to spit more blood.

The Doctor gave a short laugh, wincing at the pain it caused in his potentially broken ribs. "You pick a fight with me in my girlfriend's backyard in the middle of the night and expect me to believe it's all because the Council expects you to rat me out." He turned his head to look at the Master, lifting his shirt to try to stop the blood coming out of his nose. "That's bullshit and you know it."

Finally the Master looked away. "Believe whatever the hell you want, Doctor," the Master said bitterly. "You keep this up, it's not going to matter what you believe. Or what I expect you to believe."

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. "Look, I'm sorry they've dragged you into whatever petty grudges they have against me, but that doesn't warrant you attacking me."

"Lecture someone else, Doctor. I've heard enough for one day."

"I'm not lecturing, damn it! I'd just like to know what the hell is really going on!"

"_Fuck _you!" The Master's fists were clenched again, eyes locked hard. "Where do you get off, Doctor? Petty grudges? It's the goddamn High Council! There's nothing_ petty _about the trouble you're in!"

Still bleeding, still breathing hard, the Master was teetering on the edge of his fury - ready to go again at the slightest provocation. But this time, the Doctor didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he sighed as he looked away and waited. He let the anger and the emotion die down a bit, let their breathing slow. Then, finally, he looked up at the sky - endless and black and littered with stars.

"Look at us," he whispered. "Beating the hell out of each other under those same stars we used to stare at all the time. Those stars we were supposed to explore together. What the hell happened to us?"

"You tell me."

The Doctor shook his head sadly at the cold tone. "I honestly wish I could."

The Master was quiet for a moment, spitting blood once more before gingerly maneuvering out of his own badly stained shirt and using it to clean the blood from his knuckles. "You know, sometimes I really don't understand you, Doctor. It's as if you think you could be one of them if you just wished it hard enough."

The Doctor glanced up and their eyes locked hard. The Master kept his tone low and even as he continued. "You're a Time Lord, damn it. You're not a human. You're destined for so much more than this and you _insist_ on screwing it up."

The Doctor looked away again. "I don't want that life. I don't want to be _destined_ for anything."

"Well maybe you can't change that. I don't know why you are the way you are. I suspect you do, but you're not saying and frankly, that's fine. But one way or another, Doctor, it is what it is. Damn near anyone in that academy would give their right arm for the kind of attention you get, and all you want to do is play games, throw it all away."

"I'm not playing games; I'm trying to feel like I have even a slight amount of free will."

"And you think I don't understand that?" The Master shook his head in disbelief. "Doctor, who showed you how to bypass the isomorphic circuit? Who taught you how to get away with _half _the shit you get away with? But you're being a bloody fool about it and it's going to end up costing you everything! Nobody back home has any great love for me. Even my own family. They took one look at my name and wrote me off - and you know it. So the fact that the High Council is calling on _me _to rein you in... You're burning bridges faster than they can be rebuilt. And for what? An Earth girl who's going to be dead in fifty years?"

"Stop it. This has nothing to do with her."

"No, this has everything to do with her. Because I know you don't want to think about it, but sooner or later, she will die. And you'll have the rest of your life to deal with all the consequences of everything you gave up for her."

The Doctor sneered. "It's not my fault they can't take a hint and just leave me alone." He dropped his voice lower. "That's all I want. For them to leave me be."

"That may be all you want, but you're not going to get it. And you can either tell me why or you can keep it to yourself. I don't care; I never did. But for god's sake don't sit there and tell me it's your right. You're a Time Lord. Act like one."

"Why?" the Doctor demanded. "Because I'm 'destined'? If I did 'act like a Time Lord,' as you put it, that's all it would be. An act. Because I can't live within their suffocating restrictions. I can't even _breathe_!"

"Nor I, but if you're going to throw it all away, at least make it for something you'll never live to regret."

The Doctor turned to study him, eyes sad.

"And at the very least, finish out your time at the Academy. You're useless without that. You might as well go live with the savages outside the Citadel."

"Maybe if I go live with the savages, they'll leave me alone."

The Master rolled his eyes. "Oh, of course. Take your human girlfriend and go live with the savages. You can live the rest of your life alone and bound to the wild outback of Gallifrey. Now _that's_ freedom for you."

The Doctor glared at him. "What do you want me to say, Master? You've already admitted to understanding how I feel."

"Yes, but what you're _doing _about it is all wrong."

"Why should I care about what they want from me when they quite obviously don't care about me?"

"It's not their place to care about you." The Master looked up, eyes hard on his friend. "It's _mine_. And I hate that you're putting me in this position - making me choose between my loyalty to you and to the Council. Because I should have told them _exactly _where you were tonight."

The Doctor closed his eyes as he considered those words, and bowed his head. For a moment, he was silent. Then, finally, he spoke, barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry."

The Master sighed, and slowly pulled himself to his feet, wincing at how sore he was. But at least the bleeding had stopped. "They want you home," he said flatly, resigned to the fact that the Doctor wasn't listening to anything he had to say. "Report directly to Council chambers. If you're lucky, they'll just slap your wrist and ground you for a while. They did say they don't want to publicly humiliate you so I can't see them wanting to go through a trial to do anything more than that."

"Yeah. Alright."

The Master studied him for a long moment, then sighed audibly as he pushed a hand through his hair. "Look, they can't possibly know that I knew right where to find you," he said, trying to lighten his tone. "I told them I'd check a few places."

"So?"

"So we have some time, if you want, before you have to deal with them." He forced a tight smile before continuing, warily, "What do you say? Do you want to go see the stars?"

The Doctor couldn't help the laughter that came, painful as it was. "You're kidding me, right? Look at us!"

The Master shrugged, his smile a bit more real. "Well it won't be anyplace upper class, but that still leaves a half million planets in this galaxy cluster alone."

The Doctor stiffly stood up, grasping onto the railing. "Don't bite my head off for this, but just what the hell do I tell Angela?"

"Tell her whatever you want." The Master shrugged. "She's your problem, not mine."

"Some friend you are." The Doctor smirked as he turned and headed carefully up the steps. "Beat the shit out of me and can't even help me explain things to my girlfriend."

"My Tardis is out front," the Master called casually over his shoulder as he walked away. "I'll wait for you there."


	18. Chapter Seventeen - Quiet Conversation

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

**Quiet Conversation**

Even if it had been a place and time the Doctor had always wanted to see - which it was not - he would have had a hard time concentrating on his surroundings when his thoughts were with Angela and their few, brief words before parting. She had insisted on knowing what had just happened - why he was bloody and beaten and bruised - just the way he'd known she would. But he knew the Master as well, and he knew that he would only wait patiently for so long. It would certainly not be long enough to explain things to her.

He would have to make that explanation later, and he knew he'd better rehearse it a few times beforehand. For now, he had other things to worry about. Like how to contain his disgust at the spectacle before him.

"What's the matter, Doctor?" The Master chuckled. "I thought Earth's revolutionary France was your favorite point in all of human history. This isn't so much different."

"Revolutionary France _is _my favorite time period. For the victory of societal changes, the suppressed middle class rising up and reforming a corrupt government. Certainly not for the death and carnage."

The Master smirked, clearly enjoying himself. "Oh, come now, Doctor. Your beloved humans perfected the art of torture - a form of entertainment for peasants and aristocrats alike, depending on the period. Surely you must appreciate the art form, if nothing else."

"Just because humans perfected it doesn't at all mean I like it."

"The Coliseum of Rome, the public executions of the Middle Ages..."

The Doctor looked away as the Master continued with amusement.

"And then they got clever! As killing became less and less socially acceptable - in certain parts of the world, at least - they made fictions about serial killers and mass murderers and broadcast them to generation after generation to keep themselves amused until it came back into style as a sport." He cast a sideways glance at the Doctor and smiled. "Your precious Earth has soaked up more blood than this primitive planet could ever aspire to do."

"Is that the point of us coming here? So you can continue to point out the negative aspects of humans?"

"Negative?" The Master chuckled. "It's the one thing they're exceptionally good at. I _commend _them for that."

The Doctor sighed as his friend turned his attention back to the enormous, blood-soaked dirt pit below, and the laughter and cheers of the natives as the two men still alive screamed in agony at the torturer's hammer.

"Killing and procreating," the Master mumbled to himself. "They're an inspiration to many."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and looked away, trying to find anything but the pit below to look at. He knew the Master wasn't trying to start a fight. If he were, he knew how to hit nerves far more sensitive than generalizations about the human race.

"How'd you find out about this place, anyway? I've never even heard of it."

"Oh, I happened to read about it in the archives while I was researching for a paper on interspecies non-verbal communication. Universal code recognition - things like fear and pain. And delight." He gestured to the crowd.

"And you thought it'd be fun to come watch?" the Doctor asked incredulously.

The Master chuckled. "I thought it would be educational. And it has proved." He turned to lean on the railing, not quite putting his back to the spectacle below, but clearly more focused on the Doctor as he smiled darkly. "Though I think your communication is a bit louder, at the moment, than any other sentient being in this room."

"Oh? And what am I communicating?"

"Disgust?" He grinned. "Another universal signal."

"I'm so glad my message is clear."

The Master was quiet for a moment, eyes dark, knowing smile on his lips. Relaxed against the railing, his eyes raked his friend up and down blatantly. "But what is it you're disgusted with? Or should I say _who_?"

"I'm disgusted with the torture. I'm disgusted with the torturers. I'm disgusted with those that enjoy this. And, yes, right now that includes you, Master."

The Master smiled, as if that were precisely the answer he'd been hoping for. "Well, it's nice to know that you still have an opinion of me, one way or the other."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, is that what this is about?"

"Is what?"

"If there is a problem you're having with me, why not just come out and say it? You and I have no need for subtleties."

"No subtleties, Doctor," the Master assured him. "I'm perfectly capable of saying what's on my mind."

"Then why come here? You know I don't enjoy this sort of thing; what are you trying to prove?"

"I'm quite sure the Council is tracking my Tardis, and it seemed a fitting place to have a quiet conversation." He smirked as he watched the carnage below. "No sane Time Lord would ever willingly come to monitor a place like this."

Nevertheless, the Master's eyes were glued for a moment. As if he'd somehow managed to forget the Doctor's gaze on him, his patronizing smile fell as his eyes flashed, and he licked his lips at the smell of the blood that was thick in the air. Had he been anyone else, had he known the Master any less, the Doctor would've felt a flicker of fear in that moment - at that darkness that was so sudden and so deep and so threatening. Like flipping a switch, that calm and collected mask of restraint had fallen, and a cold blooded man capable of anything flashed in its place.

But just as quickly as the darkness came, it was gone, leaving the Doctor to wonder if he'd really seen anything at all. The Master stood up straighter as he took another drink, and the Doctor shifted uncomfortably before continuing.

"Quiet conversation? Is there something on your mind other than belittling Angela and expounding on the positives of torture?"

"What does the Council want with you?"

The Doctor frowned. He'd not been expecting that question. "How the hell should I know?"

The Master laughed to himself, shaking his head slowly. "You can only feign ignorance for so long, Doctor. And never so long with me."

The Doctor looked away, not answering.

"I've humored you for years because frankly, I didn't want to know."

"That makes two of us, equally disinterested."

"But that was before today."

Reluctantly, the Doctor looked back towards his friend.

"You must admit, Doctor, I have reason to be curious. The High Council has less interest in me than in any law abiding citizen on Gallifrey. And yet they're willing to negotiate, to give me anything I ask in order to bring you back home with no fuss. No public spectacle, as they put it."

"How kind of them," the Doctor said dryly.

The Master hesitated for a moment before continuing, intrigued. "What the hell did you do this time that they don't want a fuss about?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You know precisely where I was, what I was doing."

"Yes, but they _didn't_. That's part of the point, I think."

"You think they didn't know where I was?" The Doctor gave him a brief glare. "The President has open access to the Matrix, to say nothing of the Tardis tracking systems. They knew precisely where I've been, what I've been doing."

"If you're right, it only raises more questions."

The Doctor sighed as he looked away - accidentally at the blood below. Wincing at the sight of it, he turned his head the other way.

"Why are you so important to them? They handle you so delicately. Why? What do they want from you?" He paused. "Or what are they afraid of?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes, it matters!"

The Doctor looked up, startled by the raised voice and even more startled by the intensity in the Master's eyes. But it was quickly covered by a layer of enforced calm, and the Master took a deep, calming breath before continuing under his breath.

"In all our years of friendship, I have never asked you about those things you don't want to tell me. And I'm not asking now. I couldn't care less what your name is, what it says about you."

"Oh, please don't start."

"I know you well enough without some damned prophecy to try and explain your nature and essence. But if I'm to blindly protect your secrets, can't I at least know _why_?"

The Doctor looked away again.

"What do they want with you? Is it even about that or is it something completely different?"

"I don't know."

"But you _do_!"

The Doctor glanced at him, reluctantly.

"Whatever it is, Doctor, let me help you! I'd go to the ends of the universe to guard your secrets, and you know it. But you're shutting me out - more and more as time goes on. Please, tell me. What do they want?"

Finally, with a deep sigh, the Doctor turned and looked at him pointedly. "They want _me_, Master."

"Yes, that much seems fairly obvious."

"Does it?"

"I'm not a fool, Doctor. They sent me after you, to bring you back. But if they wanted you contained, they would have locked you away years ago."

"They don't want me contained. They want me _compliant_."

The Master paused for a long moment, studying him. "What do you mean?"

"They're afraid of me, Master. Of who I am. But it's not as simple as just locking me up. What good is a weapon you've no power to use?"

There was a lingering silence before the Master spoke again, choosing his words carefully. "You know, I figured as much. But it's quite another matter to hear you _admit _it."

"Mind you, I have no idea what sort of weapon they think I am. Only that they consider me powerful if under their control and dangerous if not."

The Master snorted briefly. "You know your own name, Doctor. Damn near the only one who _does_ know it."

"My name is a weapon," the Doctor said pointedly. He paused for a moment to let that sink in. "A weapon capable of a great deal of destruction. I don't know how, or why, or what they could ever hope to gain by hounding me about it."

"Well, that does seem obvious, doesn't it? If you're some sort of weapon, they want to know how to utilize it."

Frustrated, the Doctor raised his hands and ran them down his face. "Yes, but I'm _not_! It doesn't work like that!"

"Like what?"

"I don't even _believe _in destiny, in prophecy!"

"Then why hide it?"

Caught without a comeback, the Doctor cast a lost look at him. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then, finally, the Doctor took a deep, slow breath.

"Please. This is my burden to bear, not yours. It's best if you know nothing more."

The Master studied him carefully, hesitating for a few lingering seconds before speaking just above a whisper. "You're changing, you know."

The Doctor closed his eyes and looked away.

"Yes, you _do _know. You and I both do. Do you think the Council does as well?"

"I'm sure they're well aware."

"Yes. You're right. But what I want to know..." The Master stood straight again, finished his drink, and tossed the cup in the general direction of the rubbish bin. The Doctor watched him out of the corner of his eye as he walked slowly, deliberately, past until the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder. Then the Master turned, standing close behind him, voice low and raspy in his ear. "What are you changing into?"

The Doctor didn't move. The defenseless position, with no space between them, would have unnerved him had it been anyone else at his back. Instead, it felt familiar and strangely... safe. Turning just his head to look over his shoulder, he waited until their gazes were locked to speak.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"You could." The Master leaned a fraction closer, dropping his head a bit, eyes dark and almost threatening. But that threat was not for the Doctor; he felt that instinctively, especially at this distance, where he could feel the Master's breath as he spoke again. "Do you think anything would come of it if you did?"

"No." The Doctor raised an eyebrow, amused by what he would've otherwise considered intimidation tactics, had it been anyone else hovering over him. "Did you think anything would come of you asking me?"

The Master smiled knowingly, and slowly leaned in closer, setting a gentle, closed kiss on the Doctor's lips. He lingered for a moment before pulling back and smiling again.

"Come on," he finished casually, confidently. The dark look in his eyes had vanished even before he'd moved out of the Doctor's personal space. "I'll take you back to Earth and you can have another romp with Angela while I keep the Council busy 'looking for you.'"

*X*X*X*

"He was changing as much as I was," the Doctor said quietly. "Maybe even more. But I couldn't see it. It was so gradual, I never even noticed that look in his eyes until it was too late."

"What look?"

"That madness." The Doctor glanced up and locked eyes with River. "That power hungry madness. Other people saw it. Even Alloira saw it."

"Who's Alloira?"

"Friend of mine." He looked away. "Briefly."

River paused for a long moment before speaking again. "All I know about the Master is what you've told me. But I don't think you could've done anything to change him, if that's what you're thinking."

"Oh, by that point, there was nothing anyone could've done. That man was a perfect scapegoat for us all."

"Yes, and he was also a coldblooded killer."

"And what are we?" The Doctor looked up at her pointedly. "You and I, we've both done the same."

"No. It's not the same."

"In what way is it not the same?"

"You and I have both been very aware of every life we've taken. Of the cost of it. From what you've told me of him, he didn't care."

"Of course not. That's the one thing they fail to teach you in the Academy. How to care." He paused for a long moment, letting his eyes fade out of focus again. "They teach you how to find all those lesser civilizations, how to speak their language and know their customs. They teach you their history and their culture and their laws, and all that their planet has to offer. But they don't teach you how to give a damn about them."

River let the silence linger before she spoke again, tipping her head as she studied him with a smile. "You know, I almost get the impression that you weren't fond of Gallifrey."

"Gallifrey was beautiful."

"So was Skaro, once."

His eyes shot to her.

"And a million uninhabitable planets all over the universe," she finished. "Just because a planet is pretty doesn't make it a healthy place to grow up."

"I imagine it was a wonderful place to grow up if you could just... be normal."

"Oh, I'm sure. But what's the fun in that?"

He smiled tightly as he looked up at her. "Sometimes I wish you could've seen it, River. I don't think you would've liked it much more than I did."


	19. Chapter Eighteen - Judgment

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

**Judgment**

"Woooooooooooooohoooooo!"

The loud and long cry of pure joy ended in a laugh that was as close to maniacal as Rose had ever heard. She heard it before the room itself came into focus, fading from the darkness and forming slowly into what was clearly a Tardis control room, but one she had never seen. At the controls, grinning like an idiot, was the Doctor.

"Six men to fly a Tardis, like hell! You just watch me!"

The landing jolted him so hard, he flew several feet before landing flat on his back, laughing hysterically. It was only a moment later that the large monitor against the wall flickered to life.

"Doctor!"

The authoritative tone, yelling from what sounded like all corners of the room, made Rose stand straighter. But the Doctor was not intimidated. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled back to the controls to turn down the voice as the man on the screen yelled again.

"Get this time capsule to its proper bay right this instant!"

Still smiling, the Doctor straightened his jacket, ran a hand through his hair, then bounded to the door, leaving it open as he stepped outside with a flamboyant wave of his arm. "Thank you! Thank you! You may all now applaud."

"What the hell is the matter with you!"

Rose followed slowly, out past the doors and into a large room - the chambers of the High Council. She'd seen it not long ago. But this time, all of the chairs were filled with men and women in long, elegant robes. And most all of them - except for the man on the end - wore headdresses to match. The sight of them was so glittery and gaudy it made Rose take a step back.

"You could've atomized us all!" the man in the brown robes cried. He was the only one not wearing that hideous collar.

"Not all, Castellan," the Doctor corrected, still beaming. "Just whoever happened to be standing in that particular spot and only if I didn't anticipate them being there. Didn't you ever pay attention in flight school? Oh, no, that's right, you _didn't_! Silly me."

"Doctor!" The man on the higher, central chair was dressed in white and gold, and his voice commanded authority. The president of Gallifrey. Rose's eyes lingered on him for a long moment, fascinated.

"Oh, yes, I have been summoned! And here I am."

"Indeed you are," one of the women observed dryly.

"So!" The overexcited, joyous tone dropped suddenly from the young Doctor's voice as he glared icily at the man who seemed to be in charge. "What is it you want, Lord President?"

The Castellan was furious. "You ought to be placed under arrest for -"

"Yes, so get on with it already!" the Doctor interrupted with a roll of his eyes. "You want to arrest me?" He put up his hands. "Here I am!"

"Guards!"

"Castellan, that will be quite enough," the president intervened. "We have far more important matters to discuss than this... unorthodox entry."

The Doctor laughed. "Unorthodox! I like that! How politically correct!"

"And that's _quite _enough from you, Lord Doctor."

The Doctor smirked back, but he knew when to remain quiet. As the Castellan settled again in his chair with a vicious glare, the Doctor put his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. For a long moment, the silence stretched. Then, slowly, the President sat forward.

"Your behavior, as of late, has caused a great deal of concern."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, rocking a bit more, like a sassy and disobedient child being scolded.

"It seems we're receiving continual reports of your misconduct. Truancy and poor performance seem the least of your concerns. More troublesome are the reports of you stealing a time capsule and spending extended periods on unauthorized expeditions."

"Well, to be fair, it's actually been several time capsules and I wouldn't exactly call them expeditions. More... adventures."

"Be silent," the man to the President's right advised. "This is no laughing matter."

"Who's laughing?"

"Be _silent_!" the Castellan threatened.

The Doctor shot a smirk in his direction and he glared back as if he intended to execute him with a mere look.

"The human Angela Hartman is pregnant," the President said flatly.

The shock of those words very suddenly wiped the smile off of the Doctor's face. "Excuse me?"

"The Council has been convened to determine how to deal with the situation."

The shock still hadn't settled. As the Doctor stared, speechless, the President straightened.

"You didn't know?"

The Doctor thought fast. It was in his eyes, written all over his face as he processed the words, pushed aside his reaction to them, and chose his response carefully. "Well, that is very unfortunate."

"Is it?"

"Absolutely." As if suddenly sensing the true seriousness of the situation, the Doctor had stopped rocking. He stood straight now, eyes locked hard on the President. "The child can't be mine, of course. Our race has been sterile for millions of years."

"Best not, Doctor," the councilor in orange warned. "Your personal history is well known to everyone in this room."

"Oh, is it?"

"Your creation is recorded in the Matrix just as any other," the Castellan reminded with a smug grin. "Even if yours was a little, shall we say, unorthodox?"

The Doctor's eyes shot to him, blazing with anger, but his jaw remained tight. He didn't speak. For once, it seemed he had nothing to say.

"It is needless to point out that this situation suggests a gross breach of Gallifreyan law," the President continued authoritatively. "And it is one that can hardly be ignored. Nevertheless, we are all in agreement that it would be best not to make a public spectacle out of the human. She has, after all, done nothing inherently wrong. She shall be dealt with discreetly."

"Discreetly?"

"Your trial, too, will be held very privately. We do not wish to instigate a circus of questions and -"

"What do you mean, discreetly?" the Doctor interrupted.

"You shall not interrupt the Lord President!" the Castellan chastised.

"What do you mean, discreetly!"

The Doctor glared at the Castellan as he stood and stepped closer. This time, he was not withheld by the other members of the Council, and the Doctor remained very still as he circled slowly.

"You are a disgrace to us all," the man growled. "A liar and a thief and a murderer and now - _now!_ - you are off procreating with other species!"

"And what the hell business is it of yours in any case?" the Doctor growled back.

"It is, as the Lord President said, a gross violation of the Non-Interference Policy." Leaning in, over him, the Castellan stood nose to nose with the Doctor. "I ought to slap that stupid grin off of your face and throw you in a cage for the next fifty years or so until you gain some maturity."

"Do it then," the Doctor sneered.

Nose to nose, the two stared fiercely at each other until finally, the Castellan spun away.

"You won't do it," the Doctor mocked. "You can't. You're too afraid. Afraid of what I might do - or what I might _not _do - for you in the future."

"You could survive a very long time in silent captivity," the President warned.

The Doctor smiled knowingly, his eyes darkening. "And what makes you think you could captivate me?"

There was a deep and passionate anger in the Doctor's words and in his glare. But it wasn't that cold anger that made Rose's blood turn to ice. And it seemed to have very little effect on the Council. They held too much power to be intimidated by him, and they knew it.

After a long moment of silence, the President continued explaining his verdict. "You have three days to bring that woman to this court."

"Three days and a time capsule? I can live with that."

"You will _not_ be going alone."

"And you really do seem to think that I'll be very cooperative with your efforts to destroy her life."

"You will be, Doctor," the President said confidently. "Because you will either produce that woman for a peaceful and painless termination of her pregnancy or we will be forced to retrieve her by other means."

"And believe me, Doctor," the Castellan threatened, "the details of the latter would be far less pleasant."

The Doctor growled audibly. "You can't do that!"

"The law states that any and all efforts to repair breaches of Gallifreyan law not only can but _must _be implemented," the woman on the left informed calmly.

"But she's not even subject to your laws!"

"All of the universe is subject to the laws of this council, Doctor, even her. Even _you_!"

"Oh, go to hell!"

"You are out of line, Doctor!"

The Doctor fell silent, glaring hate and bitter anger at the panel of Time Lords looming in front of him.

"The last thing we need is half-breed Time Lords running around the universe unchecked."

"Then I'll bring her here. She can live out the rest of her years on Gallifrey."

"Preposterous! One crime to absolve another?"

"She would be contained, as would the child."

"Doctor, you must think us fools." The Castellan laughed coldly, shaking his head. "Besides, we have no more use for a half-human bastard child than for its alien mother."

The Doctor grit his teeth. "I won't deliver her to you if you can't guarantee the safety of both her and the child."

"Then we will go and find her. And don't think we won't."

The Doctor glared, but said nothing.

"_You _did this, Doctor," the President said firmly as he stood slowly. "You created this... abomination. And you will produce the human so that we can rectify it. This session is adjourned."


	20. Chapter Nineteen - Friend in Need

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

**Friend in Need**

"I'm not entirely sure what I can do to help, Doctor."

Lying on his stomach with a pillow pulled under him and his head resting on his arms, the Doctor was staring blankly at the wall in front of him. "Take me back to Earth. Your family has a Tardis; they won't even know."

"Oh, what good would that do?"

"I could hide her."

"Where?" The Master laughed. "And in what ship, because you're certainly not taking mine, gallivanting across all of time and space."

The Doctor pushed himself up, supporting his weight on his elbows, fiery eyes locked on his friend. "Master, I have to do something!"

"Well, what?"

The challenge was simple. And the silence that lingered made it clear that the answer was not. Finally, the Doctor lowered again, weight on his chin, eyes staring in front of him. The Master watched him for a long moment before sighing, and walking to the small table in the corner of the room. He was pouring a drink.

"This is all my fault," the Doctor said softly.

"I'm not arguing."

Returning to the cot, the Master held out a glass. For a long moment, the Doctor stared at it. He didn't take it until the other man swirled it impatiently, making the glass clink on the sides. Drink in hand, the Doctor finally sat up and put his feet on the floor.

"So why did you do it?" the Master asked, sitting down in an oversized lounge chair across from him.

"I didn't plan for her to get pregnant."

The Master laughed. "Oh, come on. You're a smart boy. You know how these things work."

"Our race is supposed to be sterile."

The Master rolled his eyes. "Don't start. You and I both know better than that. You're living proof."

The Doctor frowned. "How do you know that?"

The Master laughed. "Oh, get off. Half of Gallifrey knows that! Just because you refuse to talk about it doesn't mean the truth won't get out. The Last Child of Gallifrey - born and not made. That's not been a secret for years. Now, the parties responsible, on the other hand... How it happened..."

"Where can I run?" the Doctor asked pointedly, redirecting the discussion abruptly.

"From the Council?" The Master raised a brow. "Oh, you are kidding."

"I'm not going to let them take her."

"They don't want to take her. They want the fetus inside of her. There's a big difference."

"Is there?"

"She won't even remember it."

Jaw set, the Doctor stared at him coldly. Taking a small sip of whatever was in that glass, the Master stared back. If he was intimidated in the least by that anger, he didn't show it. Of course, the anger wasn't directed at him, and that certainly made a difference.

"Ah, but that is the problem isn't it?" The Master smiled knowingly. "It's got nothing to do with the child. She won't remember _you_."

The Doctor winced, ever so slightly. But he didn't answer. Finally, he looked away, down at the drink in his hands that he still hadn't tasted.

"You know, in another hundred years, she's going to be dead. Is it really worth all of this?"

"Yes."

"You're a dreamer, Doctor. You always have been. But put aside the dreams for a moment. Because underneath those dreams and ideals and everything you think you are... you're still a Time Lord. And right now, as your friend, I am telling you, as a good friend would, that you need to act like one."

The Doctor was silent for a long moment, eyes sliding closed. "I love her."

"So you've said. But that doesn't change anything. That child cannot exist. Can you imagine the scandal!"

"That may be true, Master, but I can't do it. Even if I wanted to, I can't just..."

He trailed off, shaking his head, and the Master frowned. "So don't do it. Let them do it. Just walk away."

"She'd be terrified."

"Yes, and she won't remember a thing."

"I can't do that to her."

"Doctor..."

Slowly, the Doctor raised his eyes, locking gazes with the man across from him. There was sympathy there, in the way the Master looked at him. But there was also strength, and logic, and determination.

"She's only a human."

The Doctor stared at him for a long moment, looking as if he'd just been struck. Finally, he shook his head in disbelief. "You've never been in love, have you?"

There was no answer. The Master sighed as he leaned back and watched the Doctor rise to his feet, set the full glass on the lamp stand beside the chair, and head silently for the door.

***X*X*X***

"Doctor! Where have you been!"

As Angela threw her arms around his neck, feet flailing behind her, Rose turned full circle to look at her surroundings. Angela's home. She recognized it immediately. But for the first time, her eyes fixed on a calendar hanging on the wall. June, 1989.

"You've been gone for three weeks!"

"I was called home," he said quietly.

"Yes, but three weeks? It's a time machine! You could've come back anytime!"

He was still clinging to her, face buried in her dark hair as he held her tightly against him. And finally, she was beginning to notice it.

"What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

He withdrew slowly, looking her over from head to toe as if memorizing everything about her. His hands followed, stroking her face, tracing her lips.

"You act like you haven't seen me in a very long time."

He smiled softly. "Something like that."

She took a deep breath, and a step back, standing up straight. "I have something to tell you," she announced.

"What?"

She broke into a smile - a full smile that lit up her whole face. "I'm pregnant!"

His smile was far more forced. And after only a moment, it caused hers to fall.

"You're not surprised," she realized.

"No."

"But how did you know?" Suddenly, she put her hands on her hips. "You haven't seen my future, have you? You told me you couldn't look at that!"

"I told you I didn't want to look at it."

"Why?" The mock anger turned to worry. "Is it something bad?"

"No," he said quickly, reassuringly. "No, not bad."

"What then? How did you know?"

"Because it was why I was called home."

Her face fell, a mix of emotions all swirling at once. "What does that mean?"

He swallowed, shaking his head slowly in a way that reminded Rose so much of her own Doctor. "Angela, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry."

"For what?"

"Because I've loved you. Because I do love you."

"I don't understand. Why are you sorry for that?"

Slowly, he reached toward her again, this time sliding his hand back into her hair and pulling her close. He kissed her slowly, arm around her waist to hold her against him, his other hand moving down her neck, over her shoulder. Rose moved closer on instinct alone, watching the way he kissed her and surprised by the lack of jealousy she felt. Of course, he looked different. But it was still the Doctor, and she knew it. And she knew, from the way he kissed her, that in that moment, he loved her more than anything in the universe. It made Rose swallow hard and stand up a little straighter. She knew what it felt like to be kissed by the Doctor that way.

"I love you, Angela."

His fingers brushed the girl's temple and with a soft sound, she collapsed in his arms. Holding her weight, he slowly withdrew from the kiss and knelt, laying her carefully on the floor and situating her as comfortably as he could. Behind him, as if on cue, the door to the mobile home opened and the Master stepped inside.

"Make sure she doesn't wake up," the Doctor said softly, touching her face one last time. "Please."

"I'll take care of her."

Finally, with a deep breath, the Doctor stood and turned to face his friend. "They should be here within the hour," he said softly. "If they ask, tell them you don't know where I am."

"Where _will _you be?"

"I don't know yet. But don't look for me. I'll find you when I'm ready."

The Master nodded, then offered a hand. Taking it, the Doctor pulled him into an embrace, clinging for just a moment. "Thank you."

"You owe me," the Master answered. But from the tone of voice and the soft, reassuring smile, it was clear that he didn't expect to ever cash in on the debt.


	21. Chapter Twenty - Signs of Danger

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

**Signs of Danger**

The Master was no older than he had been the last time she'd seen him. In fact, if anything, he appeared younger. With the same dark hair and goatee, he was nevertheless a different face, missing the streaks of grey and the wrinkles of age. Dressed all in black, with gold leaflets around his neck, his attire was unlike what Rose had seen him in thus far. An outfit like that - poufy sleeves and tight everywhere else - would have looked out of place in any time period on Earth that she knew. And it was nothing like the clothes of the Time Lords she'd seen.

His smirk matched the one he'd worn he had worn in his earlier incarnations, and so did the shadow in his eyes. But right now, she was too full of emotion - confusion and fury and frustration at the injustice of what she had just witnessed - to care about any of that. Looking away from him and down the hallway that stretched into the distance behind her, she angrily swiped at the tears streaming down her face. She wasn't sure when they had started, and she didn't care.

"That wasn't right," she said tightly. Then louder, with more conviction, "That wasn't right!"

The Master watched quietly, impassively. Feeling the emotion rising up inside of her, she spun back to him.

"What right do they have to do something like that! What business was it of theirs? She wasn't causing anyone any harm!"

"It isn't as if the law came as a surprise," the Master reminded her calmly. "Or as if they would change it to suit the Doctor's whim. He knew the risks when he imprinted her."

"_Imprinted _her!"

He smirked, just slightly. "The most tactful way I know to refer to a tasteless act."

Turning on him, eyes blazing, Rose stalked up to him. She didn't care about his mockery and she certainly didn't care about his views on sex. She had other things on her mind.

"What kind of people make laws like that!"

"The kind of people to whom your Doctor was born," the Master answered flatly, coldly.

Swallowing down her anger, Rose took a slow, calming breath as she turned away. She was getting nowhere but more and more angry, and it wasn't helping matters.

"What happened to her?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?"

"That can't be the end of it. What did they do to her?"

"Exactly as they specified - no more, no less."

"And the Doctor?"

"What about him?"

"Where did he go? How long did he stay away?"

"I'll show you, if you'd like."

Wheeling back to face him, Rose felt all of her anger rising up again at the sound of his carefree tone. "And you!" She stepped closer and poked a finger into his chest. "What the hell kind of friend are you? Couldn't you help him figure out another way?"

He grabbed her wrist and twisted it so hard and quick, it was clear that the only reason he didn't snap it was because he chose not to do. She let out a startled squeak, eyes wide with shock as he gave her a stern, silent warning - a dark, dangerous look in his eyes - before he let her go, shoving her a step back.

She stumbled, rubbing her wrist as she caught her balance and stared at him. For a moment, thoughts derailed by the sudden aggression, she didn't know what to say. A wave of fear, followed by confusion. He'd told her from the beginning that he wasn't independent of the Doctor. And surely the Doctor would never harm her. For that matter, the thought that she could _be _harmed here hadn't really even occurred to her. But her wrist definitely hurt. Mental projection or not, the pain was very real to her.

"You humans and your emotions," the Master sneered at her, his eyes dark and piercing. "You don't even _know _her and you pity her. Empathize with her."

"She didn't do anything wrong!"  
"You're as bad as he is." He paused as he considered his words thoughtfully. "Or perhaps it's the other way around."

Moving back against the wall, Rose tried to stay as far away from him as possible.

"All of these emotions - love and fear and hate - and for what? What do any of them benefit you in the end?"

She swallowed, gathering her defiance in spite of the fear that was still lingering in her mind. "And how was your hurting me not emotional?"

"Hurting you?" He laughed, a sound that sent a chill down Rose's spine. "I assure you, if I had any interest in seeing you hurt, I would need no emotional incentive."

She watched him, feeling that fear - that instinct that she was in danger - growing by the second. "What happened to you?" she demanded, her voice wavering just slightly. But she had faced Daleks and disaster and the threat of death; she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of scaring her.

"What do you mean?"

"You've changed." Her voice leveled, concerned and wary, but she kept the fear at bay. He wasn't even real. Surely he couldn't hurt her. "You've changed. You've become so... so dark."

He smirked slightly, but didn't answer. She searched his eyes, but found only emptiness there, as well.

"So lost..."

This time, he chuckled. "Save your sympathies, child. I've no need to be psychoanalyzed by you."

She ignored him, shaking her head slowly as she mused, mostly to herself, "You're supposed to be a manifestation of how the Doctor sees you. Is this really what he thinks of you?"

"I said I know the Doctor better than most anyone. Do you think he would know me any less?"

"No." She swallowed hard as she stood straight, shoulders back. "Which makes me wonder why he would let you guard his memories."

"Wonder all you'd like. I don't believe it's any of your concern."

"But it is my concern. Because I'm the one in here with you and you just attacked me."

His smile widened as he dropped his head a fraction and stepped in closer. "Attacked you?"

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, but it didn't warrant you trying to break my wrist."

Crouching in on her personal space, he lowered his voice. "My dear child, if wanted to break your wrist - if I wanted to hurt you in any way - I wouldn't have to _try_."

Rose pressed herself against the wall more, swallowing against her suddenly dry throat. "Then what do you call that? What you did?"

"Communicating."

The anger, buried somewhere deep in her reserves, finally found its way to the surface, mingling with the fear in a heady, confusing mix. "I think you need to learn how to better communicate, mate."

In a flash, he had her pinned, forearm against her throat, cutting off her air. Eyes wide, she grabbed frantically and instinctively at his arm, but she knew immediately that she had no hope of breaking free. "Do you know how many of you pathetic little humans the Doctor has gone through over the years?" the Master hissed at her. "Angela was the first, but she was hardly the last. Memories erased, lives ended or scarred forever. All of them so easily replaced."

She writhed, chest heaving as adrenaline kicked in and fight or flight instincts went into overdrive. Inches away, the Master smiled wickedly.

"How long do you think it would take him to replace you?"

She tried kicking at him, struggled as wildly and as frantically as she could, but he pinned her hard, his full weight on her, crushing her. She wasn't going anywhere until he let her go. It suddenly occurred to her to wonder, in the blind panic that was swirling in her mind, if she could actually die here. If he might actually be capable of killing her. River had said she'd be safe... but she'd also said she couldn't be hurt. And the arm across her throat was pressing hard enough to cause pain as well as fear.

"Struggle all you'd like, if it makes you feel better." Leaning forward, he broke eye contact to growl in her ear. "I've been the agent of _his _death, my dear, sweet Rose. Do you think I would hesitate to be yours?"

Moving his arm suddenly from her throat, he grabbed her by the hair and threw her, none-too-gently, to the floor. She didn't think, didn't stop to wonder why he'd let her go. Instead, she scrambled to her feet and ran as fast and hard as she could down the hall, gasping for breath as she heard his laughter behind her.


	22. Chapter Twenty One - The Visionary

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

**The Visionary**

"I was wondering how long it would take you to come and see me."

The Master stood in the doorway, wary of stepping into the room. He hadn't expected that his arrival would be anticipated. Suddenly, it made him uneasy, made him second guess whether he should have come at all.

"You knew I would?" he asked, brow furrowed.

The Visionary smiled congenially as he looked up. Seated behind an oversized desk with books and scrolls - rolled and unrolled - piled on either side of him, he looked every bit the researching scholar rather than the mystical prophet he was rumored to be. The Master had never been entirely sure he believed in things like prophecy and mysticism, but it was a fine line between prophecy and foreknowledge for a man who had open and unregulated access to the Matrix.

"The Doctor has been missing for three weeks. I knew your morbid fascination would eventually lead you here, yes."

The Master scowled. "Hardly morbid fascination, I assure you. He's my friend. He's less than a year from graduation and he's throwing his life away."

"Is he your friend?" the Visionary challenged. "Are you quite sure of that?"

The Master frowned but didn't answer.

"Perhaps you haven't yet grown into the man who questions all authority," the Visionary said dismissively, then looked up with a smirk. "Before taking it for his own."

"What authority?" the Master challenged. "I told you, he's my friend. It's not a matter of authority."

The Visionary laughed. "Of course, of course. Please, come in. Close the door behind you."

The Master felt as if he had come to see the witch in the dark tower - a figment of a fairy tale. Tucked into a far corner of the citadel where no one ever came accidentally, the Visionary's home was equally his prison. It was part of the office, the sacrifice he paid for his knowledge.

Once, this man had been the Matrix Coordinator - a well respected office that he had traded in when the previous Visionary had appointed him, at his death. Already intimately familiar with the Matrix and its organizational structure, when its entirety was laid out before him, he was able to know and understand things that no Time Lord was meant to know. While the Matrix itself could not guarantee future events in Gallifreyan relative time, it could predict them with alarming accuracy. The Visionary could - he had - read those predictions. Things about his own future, about the future of the universe. Things he could never be allowed to change. He knew everything there was to know, all the wealth of knowledge gained by the Time Lords throughout the ages. But on pain of death, he was powerless to change even the slightest detail. To do so could be disastrous to the Web of Time.

Or so it was said.

"I don't know what to think of you," the Master admitted as he stepped into the dimly lit room. "Some people look at you like you're some sort of fortune teller. But I don't believe in that."

"In prophecy, you mean. You don't believe in prophecy."

"Yes. That's what I mean."

"Quite right, too. But I am no prophet."

"What are you, then?"

"I see things as they are, as they were, and as they will be."

"Oh, and that's not prophecy," the Master mocked.

"You are a Time Lord, Kosechi. What time is there that's not relative?"

An ice cold, threatening glare passed over the Master's face. "Don't call me that."

But the Visionary only smiled knowingly.

His anger mounting at the look on the old man's face - a look that seemed almost smug - the Master took another step closer. "I'm surprised you would call me that at all. Weren't you the one who _hid _my name from me?"

"I knew that the Doctor would tell you what you needed to hear."

"What I needed to hear?"

"It was the only beginning that could be had for a relationship such as yours. An enmity of ages from the seeds of friendship sown."

"You're not going to turn me on him, if that's what you mean to do."

"I don't need to. Time will run its course with or without my hand."

"He's the only friend that I have in this god-forsaken universe. Your prophecy was wrong."

"God?" The Visionary laughed. "Haven't you figured it out yet, boy? We are the gods of this universe. And you..."

"What about me?" the Master demanded, his anger seething at the man's smile.

"You more than any of us. Master of all..."

"Stop it."

"Have you ever wondered why they shun you? Have you ever thought that perhaps they know?"

"Know what?"

"That sound in your head, Kosechi. The beating of the drums... Doesn't it drive you mad?"

The Master growled in anger. He couldn't tell if the man was mocking him, or if he truly believed that the never-ceasing rhythm was real, and not merely a figment of his imagination. In either case, it mattered very little.

"I'm not here to talk about me," the Master said firmly.

"Of course not. You want to know about the Doctor."

"Yes."

The Visionary paused, and eyed him with obvious scrutiny. "But you know I cannot tell you what you would ask. That I will not."

"You say you know me," the Master said low, coming in close enough to lean forward on the Visionary's oversized desk. "Do you know I could kill you where you stand and not feel an ounce of remorse?"

"Would you, now?"

"I've done it before."

The Visionary paused, but he seemed neither alarmed nor afraid. After a moment of hesitation, he answered simply and almost casually. "That would most certainly put an interesting twist on your relationship with the Doctor. How do you suppose you would explain your actions to him? To say nothing of the High Council..."

"The Council can hang."

The Master stepped around the desk and drew a small knife from his pocket. The Visionary tipped his head back instinctively as the Master pressed it to his throat.

"Tell me what I want to know. Or I slit your throat right here and now."

There was no fear in the Visionary's eyes, even at the prospect of death. Perhaps that, too, was the cost of omniscience. Or perhaps he considered himself due for a regeneration.

"I will tell you only this," he finally said, his voice low and serious. "The Lord Doctor is not safe."

"I assure you, Lord Visionary, that wherever he is, he is quite resourceful. He's perfectly safe."

"Wherever he is. But you don't know where he is, do you? In fact, you haven't seen him since he left you to tie up the mess he made with that human wench."

"Don't toy with me."

"You misunderstood me, by the way." The Visionary smiled. "I meant that it is safe for no one when he is near. Not even you. Perhaps _especially _not you."

"What do you mean?"

"Two sides of the same coin, you are. Light and dark, life and death. In a way, the two of you need each other to survive. There could be no light without darkness. There could be no death without life."

"_What _do you mean, he's a danger?"

"I did not say he was a danger. I said he was not safe."

"Yes, and what did you mean by that?"

"The lonely child and renegade, healer of them all. Who never shall return again to Gallifreyan call."

"Healer," the Master repeated.

"Doctor, as one translation would have it."

"I don't understand. Are you telling me that his prophecy is so like mine that it's a single word's difference?"

"You are the same in many ways," the Visionary confirmed. "But he is more powerful than you will ever be. You may have power over death. But he has power over life."

The Master growled, tired of the poetry. "Speak plainly!" he threatened, pressing the knife harder against the older man's throat. A thin trickle of blood ran down the side of the Visionary's neck.

"You two are far more intertwined than either of you recognize. Though I should think he understands a great deal more than you do. You are the light in his darkness. And you are the darkness to his light."

"I'll not ask you nicely again."

"You will not kill me," the Visionary said confidently. "Not because you're incapable, because you will truly kill millions. But my death is not yours."

Stunned, the Master's grip on the knife actually faltered. "Millions," he repeated. "_I _will kill millions?"

"Yes."

"And the Doctor?"

The Visionary hesitated. "He will kill many more."

The Master took a small step back still shocked.

"You must understand, Lord Master. Your friend is not a man at all. He is a weapon of destruction, fashioned by the hands of time itself. And the moment of his choosing will be the moment of death for all of us."

"If that's true, why does the Council grant him such leniency? Why don't they control him? Aren't they afraid of him?"

"Oh, they are afraid of him," the Visionary said with complete conviction. "But they do not know him. He does not even know himself. They know only that he is powerful, that he is different from any other man. He knows only that he _seeks_ to bring healing and not death."

"But you just said, he'll kill millions. _More _than millions. How is that possible when he's seeking the exact opposite?"

"He cannot escape what he was created to be. But that does not mean he will not try." The Visionary paused. "He is a man who will wage war with the universe just as he wages it within himself. His struggle to be human, to be anything but the Time Lord he ought to be... It will destroy him in the end."

The Master stared silently, absorbing the Visionary's words and feeling somehow wary of believing all he had just learned. The Visionary smiled sadly.

"You would be wise to listen to me very carefully, Lord Master. If the Doctor is not restored to his rightful place in society, if he is not persuaded that he ought to _embrace _that position, _embrace _his heritage... then he shall become a villain of unimaginable power. He will gladly destroy you in his effort to escape. He will destroy all of Gallifrey."

The fact that the Master did not believe in prophecy suddenly seemed very moot. The sincere, dark words of the man sitting in front of him were echoing in his mind, over and over again. Could the Doctor do such a thing? Could he truly turn his back on his people to such an extent?

"He, not you, is the one I have to fear," the Visionary continued. "You're only a plaything for him to toy with. You feed each other's darkness, and he knows you will play along willingly, encouraging him to seek ways of escape. You are the crutch he leans on. And the one he will burn for kindling when he's tired of you."

The Master swallowed, jaw set as he stared the much older man in the eye.

"You say you do not believe in prophecy," the Visionary finished, his voice low and somber. "But know this. It will be the Doctor who lights your funeral pyre in the end. It will be the Doctor who will sentence us all to die in flames."

"You lie."

"Do I?"

Again, the Master swallowed the lump in his throat. But he didn't have the words to resist.

"You say this. But I see in your eyes that you know the truth. It is no lie. I cannot lie about such things."

The Master said nothing. After a moment's pause, the Visionary sighed deeply and lowered his head, finishing sadly.

"The events have finally been set into motion. There is no changing it now."

"What events?" the Master demanded.

The Visionary looked up, and suddenly, he looked very, very old. "Find him," he ordered. "Look for him, in the places you know to look. You will find him. And you will see that you, like the rest of us, are meaningless to him."

"No," the Master said firmly. "You're wrong."

"Am I? You're a Time Lord. He might as well be half human. And you're mistaken if you think that he would not choose to lie with that earthling in a bed of shame rather than to see the stars with a childhood friend he's long outgrown."

The Master glared, but didn't satisfy that accusation with a response. Jaw clenched and posture straight, he simply turned and walked out of the room without another word.


	23. Chapter Twenty Two - Unforgiveable

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

**Unforgiveable**

"You didn't have to do this."

The woman bent and staring into the oven laughed. "It's frozen pizza, not a five course meal. Besides, it's the least I could do, Mr. ...?"

She stood and placed the pizza on the counter, then pushed her hair back with her forearm as she turned towards him, awaiting an answer to the implied question. Rose, standing in the center of the familiar living room, recognized her immediately, just as she knew she would. The woman was Angela, and the room, with its shabby furniture, stained linoleum floor, and water-damaged ceiling, was the interior of the mobile home Angela lived in. She was a few years older, but still recognizably the woman the Doctor had loved. The Doctor, too, looked older somehow. It was in his eyes, in the creases of his brow.

"You know, I don't think I caught your name," Angela prodded when she received no response.

"Doctor," he answered with a sad smile. "Just Doctor."

She smirked back at him. "Well, that'll be a bit odd getting used to. I'm Angela, by the way."

"Yes, I know."

"Do you?"

"You'd mentioned it." He looked away.

"Oh." She tipped her head as she studied him curiously. "You know, I could swear I've seen you somewhere before. Are you sure we've never met?"

His answer was cut off by a knock on the door. She smiled as she turned, heading toward it. "Wonder who that could be."

Far more wary of unexpected visitors, the Doctor stood and cast a worried look at the door. "Angela, wait."

Too late. As soon as she'd thrown the lock, the door opened by itself and she took a startled step back. "Excuse me!"

Rose gasped, standing up straighter. The Doctor's eyes fixed on the intruder's, and he slowly stepped away from the table.

"Master," he greeted, low in his throat.

"What are you doing here?" the Master demanded angrily. "You shouldn't be here."

"Excuse me, but who the hell are you?" Angela demanded.

"Sit down and shut up," the Master ordered, shooting a threatening glare in her direction.

Stunned, she simply stared at him, jaw dropped, as he turned his attention back to the Doctor.

"Of all the places in the universe, Doctor, why the bloody hell did it have to be here?"

"Why does it matter to you?" the Doctor demanded. "You have nothing to do with this."

"I have _everything_ to do with this," the Master growled. "Because right now, Doctor, you need someone to stop you. And apparently I'm the only one who can do it."

"There's nothing to stop." The Doctor took a step closer. "Just leave."

"You know I can't do that."

"Yes, you can. It's easy. Just turn around, walk out the door, and get into your Tardis. Simple as that."

"I spoke to the Visionary."

The Doctor stopped cold, the moment of shock clearly visible before he reconfigured his expression into one of stone cold stoicism.

"What did he tell you?" he demanded, his voice flat and even.

"More than I needed to know."

"Oh, will you stop being cryptic and just come out with it?" the Doctor demanded in disgust. "Why are you here?"

The Master didn't have a chance to respond. Angela had recovered from her shock, and she stepped up now with boldness. "Listen, I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you two can both leave right now before I call the police!"

The Master spun to her, arm up, stazer pistol suddenly in hand and pointed directly at her. "I told you to shut up," he warned.

"What are you gonna do, shoot me with a toy gun? I said get _out_!"

The Master stared at her for a moment, shot a quick glance - a raised brow that qualified as a look of amusement - in the Doctor's direction, and fired.

"No!"

Angela fell with a cry of pain, and the Doctor was immediately at her side. She was alive, eyes wide with fear and whimpering in pain. "He... He shot..."

"It's okay," the Doctor said quietly. "You're going to be alright. Just lie still."

Still acutely aware of the Master's looming presence, the Doctor jumped to his feet and closed the gap between them, rage flashing in his eyes. "What do you want?"

"You," the Master growled. "Back on Gallifrey. _Now_."

"No."

"It wasn't a question, Doctor. Go back, finish your last year in the Academy and find your place. If, after all of that, you still -"

"I am _not _going back to Gallifrey!"

"Damn it, you listen to me!" The Master stepped in close, growling as he lowered his voice and hissed his words through clenched teeth. "You may be as destined as I am for murder and renegade existence, but as long as you're here, there's a big difference between you and I that makes you _far _more dangerous."

"And what's that?" the Doctor demanded, his voice equally low and threatening.

"I'm still a Time Lord. And you..." The Master sneered at him. "You seem to have forgotten what you are."

"Oh, I am well aware of who I am and what I'm destined for. I just don't want it."

The Master stepped in closer, until they were nose to nose. "You don't get it, do you? All those things you're supposed to be, those things you're destined for, they start _here_! Here and now."

"All I want is to be left alone."

"Has it ever occurred to you, Doctor, that all those things you think you're destined for, they're things that a Time Lord would never be? All those things you're afraid of becoming, you could put an end to them right now."

Angela gave a cry of pain that made the Doctor wince. His jaw ticked as he stared down the man standing only inches away. "Get out."

"You think you're running away, Doctor, but you're running right _towards_ everything you don't want."

"I said get out."

"And I said you'll listen to me!"

The stazer pistol under his chin silenced the Doctor, and he swallowed his fury as he glared silently at the Master.

"I don't care if you're a killer. I don't care if you're a weapon. But I draw a line at the point where you're all of that and _not_ one of us. Because as long as you're a Time Lord, you're bound by oath not to use those powers in any way that'll destroy the fabric of the universe. So I'm not going to let you forget, Doctor, that you're still a Time Lord. And I'm not going to stand by and watch you fulfill some fucking prophecy of doom and gloom - for _both_ of us, against our _own _people - because you're in love with some shrieking Earth girl!"

The continuing cries of pain and fear had been fuel at first. Now they were just getting annoying. Never taking his eyes off of the Doctor, the Master raised the weapon again and fired, this time at the girl's head.

The Doctor didn't think. He simply reacted. It wasn't in time to keep the shot from firing, but it was in plenty of time to catch his opponent off guard. Shoving him off balance, he grappled for the weapon until he finally wrenched it free and shoved it into the Master's chest. Only then did he allow himself a look at Angela, and he sucked in a breath as he noticed her chest wasn't rising and falling.

Bringing his eyes back to the Master, he felt the fury rising up inside of him in a way he'd never felt before. "I should kill you where you stand," he growled.

"Do it, then," the Master snarled back at him. "But don't stop there. Make sure you stop both my hearts, because killing me once isn't going to change anything."

"You didn't have to shoot her!"

"No, Doctor. I did. And I would do it again."

The Doctor swallowed noticeably, his eyes watering in pain and sadness and vicious anger.

"I will do anything I have to just to make you realize that your place is _not_ here among the lower species!"

"And where is it, then?" the Doctor demanded. "With _you_? Out among the stars, wanderers and adventurers in space? You and I both know that's a pipe dream. It will never happen."

"That's not the point."

Hissing uneven breaths through his teeth, the Doctor took a step back and lowered the weapon. But his voice was still just as full of anger as he spoke again. "You just killed somebody that I loved. And you expect to use that to help me realize where my 'rightful' place is?"

"Whatever it takes."

"There was a time, Master, when you understood. When you felt as stifled as I did and you knew _why _I had to get away from everything you're trying to force me to go back to."

"I still understand that. But this isn't the way."

"And what is! You've got this idea that we're going to run away together, that we're going to escape and complete each other. Oh, and yes, I know, you have your reasons for running away. You've been shunned by your people - your own family - from the very start for reasons you have no control over and really don't even understand."

"I understand better than you think."

"Do you?"

"Yes. I do." He paused. "Now."

The Doctor stood still, posture impeccably straight, trying to keep his lower lip from trembling.

"I understand now that it's because of you. Because we _do_ complete each other, whether we like it or not. Light and dark and death and life. You've known that from the very beginning, when you _stopped _reading my name because you didn't want to go any further. Because you couldn't stand the thought that I might come to know you in the process of knowing myself."

Doctor look away, at Angela, and his anger was rekindled. As he turned his glare back to the Master, his teary eyes were full of fire. "You're the murderer, not me." The Doctor shoved the stazer pistol sideways into his chest, handing it back to him roughly. "A murderer who comes from a people that's willing to kill others that they think are below them. Why should I want to be a part of that?"

"Because at least I would _never_ kill my own kind."

"And you think I would?"

"I think you're capable of it, yes."

The Doctor shook his head in disbelief. "Amazing. After all these years, you don't know me at all, do you?"

The Master growled. "You _still _don't get it, do you? Name _one_ Time Lord in all of history who has turned and waged war on his own people! Just one!"

"There has been plenty of hostility in -"

"In denying what you are, you're redefining history," the Master interrupted. "No Time Lord could commit an act of genocide - it stands against all that we believe. But _you_!" Angry, jaw clenched, eyes glistening with furious tears, it was the Master's turn to shake his head. "You already_ have_. You've broken every law, you've set yourself apart and forgotten what you are. And I am asking you. As your _friend_! Go back to Gallifrey. _Stop _this now."

The Doctor stood still as he watched the man turn and walk away, then cast a long, lingering, sorrowful look at the woman lying still on the floor. Slowly, he could feel the last of his sorrow, the last of his mourning for a people he would never truly belong to, shifting and turning into anger.


	24. Chapter Twenty Three - Tardis

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

**Tardis**

"These are very serious allegations, Lord Doctor."

Eyes lowered, jaw set, the Doctor didn't flinch. "Check the Matrix if you don't believe me," he said coldly. "I was there and I saw it. It would've been in range of two different Tardis sensors. The facts are indisputable."

He stood still as the Council conversed amongst themselves in hushed tones before the Castellan finally spoke loudly. "While your blatant disregard for the laws and policies of Gallifrey is in no way excusable, a board of inquiry will nevertheless be convened to investigate the death of the Earth woman you were so carelessly involved with."

The Doctor nodded slowly as he stepped back, then turned away from them. He had nothing more to say, and no more tears left to cry. At least, none that he could allow them to see. They would never understand. Their world was one of rules and regulations, formalities and appearances. There was no place for things like friendship and love. Even his own mother and father, who must have loved each other at one point, never showed it now. They got along well enough, as everyone here did. But that wasn't love. At most, it was compatibility. Sometimes he wondered how he'd ever come to be...

Once again, the Doctor was different from all the world around him. He had felt love, and he had felt friendship. And now, he felt loneliness. Stripped of his dreams by the travesty of Time Lord justice, robbed of his faith by the betrayal of his friend. And now, perhaps his final demise was his own doing. Murder was a clear violation of the Non-Interference Policy - and a serious one. The Master would stand trial. The Doctor didn't intend to be here to see it. For the first time in more than fifty years, he found himself without even the support of his single, constant friend.

He was truly alone.

Rose followed him at a distance. She knew his thoughts and felt his grief, but even if she hadn't been able to do, she would've known simply by the look on his face. He was lost. Directionless. The one thing she didn't know was where he was going. Perhaps he wasn't sure of that, either. Through the hallways and then out into the narrow streets.

The city - the Citadel - wasn't really very big. Like a fortress on a mountainside, where a whole city lived within the castle walls, it stood self-contained and protected. But how many were there? How many Time Lords lived here? A few thousand? A half a million? She doubted it could be many more than that. Of course, she had heard that not all of them lived here. But she had seen no other city. Someday, when this was all over, she would have to ask the Doctor...

He slowed as he reached his apparent destination - if he'd had any destination at all. It was a repair yard of some sort. And all of those boxes and pillars and ships of varying sizes, lined up in an order known only to the repairmen... Rose's eyes grew wide as she realized what she was staring at. Every one of these items was a Tardis!

The Doctor walked slowly down the row, looking at nothing in particular. Then, suddenly, he stopped, turned, and stared at one of the capsules in particular. Rose followed his gaze. It was nothing to look at, really. A badly weathered wardrobe, with unfamiliar markings sprayed on the front of it. Those marks had been put there deliberately. She wondered by whom, and what for.

"A Type 40," the Doctor said quietly, tracing the seam of the doors with the tip of his finger. "I don't think I've ever seen one like you before. How long have you been out of commission?"

Rose came closer, carefully, watching as the Doctor placed his palm against the damaged wood and closed his eyes, a smile crossing his lips. "I'll bet you're beautiful inside, aren't you?"

Another moment of hesitation, and he stepped away, looking around him before he slipped a thin key out of his pocket, and with almost no effort at all, forced the lock. Rose stared. She hadn't seen him use that master key before. Now she was stunned that such a thing could even exist. She knew that lock, and it was damn near impossible to pry open. But he'd walked right through as if it was nothing.

Inside of the Tardis, it was dark. She hadn't been powered up in decades. No wonder, if she was a type 40. She would be low on the priority list, practically a museum piece by now. He closed the doors behind him in spite of the dark, and drew in a deep breath of the stale air.

"Nobody's been in here for ages, have they?" he said softly. "You poor thing..."

Stepping carefully, he left footprints in the dust as he walked to the shadow of the console and studied it for a moment. "Can you fly?" he asked, circling the console slowly. "_Would_ you fly? I'm not sure I even know where the isomorphic circuit _is _on you."

The silence was eerie - completely still, as if walking into a tomb. There wasn't much light - barely enough to see the outlines of the controls - but she hadn't been cannibalized. The rotor in the center of the console glowed dimly, like a dying ember. Was she dying? It was hard to tell what was wrong with her. No ship could sit for so long and not need _any _repairs, and there was a reason why she'd been parked here in the first place. But if her main circuits were intact... If her _Matrix _was intact...

He leaned forward to press his hand gently against the time rotor, feeling her cool skin for the first time. "Your controller left you long ago, didn't he?" Tracing his fingers down to the console, he caressed her lightly, smearing a path in the dust. His head remained bowed as he looked up, into her rotor as if into her eyes. "Would you like a new one?"

Silence answered him. He smiled. It wasn't as if he'd been expecting an answer. It was the question that made him smile. His Tardis. His _own _Tardis. His smile fell as he lowered his eyes.

"I should tell you... I could never bring you back." He swallowed hard as he studied her controls in the dim light. They looked familiar enough. Not terribly unlike a Type 60. "And I'm not exactly qualified to pilot you. In fact, I'm not technically qualified for much of anything unless I go back to that Academy for the next three months." He shook his head as that thought came and went quickly. "And I can't do that."

He circled the console, squinting in the dim light, struggling to see her panels. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Somehow, that was comforting. Where he stood, he was alone. Or rather, he was alone with another sentient consciousness that was just as alone as he was.

"Seems kind of silly, I suppose," he admitted. "Fifty years worth of academia... and I just can't bring myself to finish the last few months. I just can't go back. I can't make myself care anymore."

He let the silence stretch for a moment, let the soft echo of his voice penetrate the walls of the unresponsive Tardis.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way," he whispered as his fingertips found a flat panel of the console. Barely able to see in the dark, he swirled slowly, carefully, tracing circles in the dust as he muttered under his breath, "The Lonely Child of Gallifrey."

He glanced up at the silent time rotor again as his fingers finished. "I thought it was a mistranslation," he whispered. "Now I'm not so sure."

Lowering his eyes to the console again, he stared for a moment at the dust outline of his name, barely visible in the dim light, then smeared it away quickly.

"We could be lonely together. What do you say?"

Swallowing hard, he reached underneath the console and felt for the fail safety switch. It took him a moment to find it, but when he did, he found it engaged, cutting off power to the console, the lights, and all of the Tardis' computer circuits. The Doctor smiled smugly.

"Aw... now that's just not nice."

He flipped the switch and she immediately whirred to life - systems rebooting, lights flickering on. He took a step back as the room slowly illuminated, humming softly around him. A Type 40 Tardis. _His _Type 40 Tardis. He smiled as he turned full circle, studying her walls, her ceiling, her floor, and finally, her elegant, dust-covered controls.

"You," he whispered softly as he reached out to run a hand lightly over her console, "are the most beautiful thing I've ever known."


	25. Chapter Twenty Four - Deadly Threat

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

**Deadly Threat**

Rose gasped as the darkness engulfed her suddenly, as if someone had just turned off the lights. The fear came instantly. She wasn't in the hallway. She wasn't anywhere identifiable, in fact. The darkness around her never receded as a light - like a spotlight - glowed around her. She could see two feet in any direction, but no further. Whether there were walls or not, she wasn't quite sure. The only thing she knew for sure was that the Master was there.

She felt him before she saw him, stepping out of the shadows and closer to the dim circle of light that separated him from her. But he stayed on the edge of it, circling around to get nearer to her rather than walking through it. She stepped back instinctively, keeping pace with him.

"You've run out of places to hide."

He sounded different. Younger. And the body he wore now - what little she could see of it - had broken the pattern of his previous incarnations. No dark hair, no goatee. But somehow, he still had those same eyes. Those same dangerous, piercing eyes.

"Please." Rose turned in circles, following him, keeping him in her sights and keeping as much distance as she could. "Just leave me alone."

"Well, at least you know how to ask nicely."

He didn't stop circling. Heart pounding against her ribs, she kept pace with him.

"Did he tell you what you would find in here? Your precious Doctor..." He was taunting her, his voice cutting. "Did he ever tell you about his darkness and his secrets? The centuries of lies - pretending everything he did was safe and good and right?"

"He never pretended that." She gulped, trying to keep calm and find a way out. "I know his past isn't perfect. I know he's done and seen things that no one should have to in any life."

"Oh, there's that sympathy again." He smiled wickedly, still circling as if he didn't want to step into the light. "You humans. So much blind love and trust."

"You're right. I do love him. And I do trust him. But I also know him. I know him well enough to know what he's capable of. It's not blind."

"You _know _him," the Master mocked, smirking at her. "Oh, that's so human! He must eat that up, doesn't he?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat as the Master stopped walking, eyes fixed on her, and lowered his head a fraction. He was eyeing her like prey. It made her heart beat even faster.

"Please. Just let me go."

He paused a moment as if to consider, then smiled as he stepped forward. As he crossed into the light, he breached the one barrier she had left, and she gasped in horror.

"No," he said simply.

"But I don't understand!" She took a step back for every step he took closer, well aware that she was walking into the darkness. "You said yourself, you're not _real_!"

"Reality itself is a construct. A fiction." He smiled wickedly. "Reality is what you make it."

"But I'm no threat to you, you must know that! Just let me go!"

"Sorry, can't do that."

"Why not?"

He stalked slowly, eyes on fire as he licked his lips. "Maybe I have a need to inflict pain and suffering on lesser species. Or may I want to see the Doctor suffer endlessly for all the times he's _insufferably _stood in my way throughout the years. Or maybe, just maybe..." He smiled wider. "I just like killing. Just for the pure fun of it. Even if I have to do it with my bare hands."

"Doctor!"

***X*X*X***

"Doctor!"

"What? What is it?"

River was clinging to his arm as he leaned down, studying her. Her eyes were wide with fear as she stared back at him. "Rose. It's Rose. It has to be."

"What? What's wrong?"

"She's..." River swallowed hard, her eyes darting to the unconscious figure on the floor of the Tardis, then back to the Doctor, then to the nearest exit. "She's terrified."

"Terrified of what?"

"I don't know!" Her eyes went back to Rose's body on the floor, and she gasped. "Doctor, look at her."

He spun a bit awkwardly and studied her silently for a few seconds before coming in closer. She was hyperventilating, her face and neck covered in sweat. As he dropped to his knees beside her, he felt her neck for her pulse. It was racing. She was still and silent, but she was frantic.

"I'm pulling her out," River announced.

"No," he answered firmly.

"What do you mean, no! She's terrified!"

He stood and spun to her. "Because if you pull her out you might not be able to send her back in! If she's terrified, she's not dead, and if she's not dead, she can still keep working because in case you haven't noticed, River, _he's_ not reacting in the slightest."

River stared as the Doctor pointed in the direction of his younger self, lying unmoving on the floor. Casting another look down at Rose, the Doctor thought fast, and out loud.

"I can send you in her place but you don't know him. You have no chance of talking sense to him when and _if _you find him and that's a big _if _because she hasn't done it yet and she'd know his pathways better than you do. In any case, if you did find him, chances are pretty good he'd simply throw you out. Which means if you pull her out of there and she's in any way damaged, she will have no time to recover before he's dead. I'm dead. Time gets rewritten, here and now."

"What do we do?" River demanded impatiently.

He stared down at Rose for a moment, then at the other body lying still on the floor. There was only one thing they could do.

"No," River said suddenly as the thought occurred to her at the same time. "No, Doctor, you can't do that!"

She stepped between him and the Doctor lying on the floor, blocking his path as he advanced.

"You shouldn't even be in the same time space as him! You can't interact with him and you certainly can't go into -"

"Get out of the way," he interrupted, staring hard at her.

"What makes you think he'd even let you in!"

"If anyone can break down his defenses, I should think it would be me."

"But you can't! It could kill him - you - both!"

"The only risk is if I encounter his consciousness."

"And can you guarantee that you won't?"

"No."

"Then don't do this," she said firmly. "Send me."

"I can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because Rose is channeling through you! To put you in, we'd have to pull her out."

"Do it, then. We can put her back in afterwards."

"_If _her mind can take the stress - if _yours_ can!"

"Well her mind is certainly under stress as it is!"

Anger and frustration mounting, the Doctor took a step forward, crouching in on River's personal space. "And what makes you think you'd be any better equipped than she is to handle the Master?"

River blinked, confused. "The Master?"

"You've never met him, you know nothing about him other than what I've told you."

"But how can she be -"

"Shut up!" he ordered. "We haven't got time."

Swallowing hard, River remained silent. The Doctor lowered his voice as he set his mind on the task at hand. "I know him," he whispered. "He's a creation of my own mind, and I alone know how to stop him. Not you, not Rose."

"If he's merely a creation of your own mind, why is he threatening her in the first place?"

"He's threatening her _because_ I know him. Because he's the Master. And because it's what he would do."

She didn't speak. She was searching him for some reassurance, or some stroke of genius that would find another, less dangerous way of helping Rose. But nothing came. And finally, he nodded slowly.

"River. Trust me." He set his hands on her shoulders. "Please."

Still hesitant, she finally nodded and stepped out of the way. As the Doctor knelt beside the body of his former self, he cast a long look at the hyperventilating woman lying across from him.

"Run, Rose," he whispered, as if she might somehow hear him. "I'm coming."


	26. Chapter Twenty Five - Dominant Person

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**

**Dominant Personalities**

Rose was running through the endless darkness. She couldn't hear footsteps behind her, but somehow she knew he was there. He was _right _there, watching over her shoulder. Only a few steps behind, in the dark. She couldn't see him, but she could feel him.

_Run, Rose..._

Her lungs felt like they might burst. With every step she took, she wondered if she was going anywhere at all. She couldn't see, and she didn't know where she was. A dark room, not the hallway. Where was the hallway? Not that it would be any safer there, but at least she would have a destination. He'd said there were other sections, controlled by other keepers. One of them would help her. One of them would _have _to help her.

Blind and terrified, she crashed into the wall so hard she fell over backwards from the rebound. Eyes wide with horror, she didn't bother to check herself for injury. She was scrambling back up, feeling frantically along the wall for... Yes! A door! The light outside was blinding, or maybe it was only because her eyes had become adjusted to the dark. As she stumbled out into the hallway, her foot caught and she went sprawling forward. But instead of hitting the floor, she fell into someone's arms.

Her immediate fear - that it was the Master she'd fallen into - was quelled as her head snapped up and she stared into a pair of familiar eyes on an unfamiliar face. "Doctor?"

"Shhh..." He touched his finger to his lips.

She didn't say another word. He stood straight, helping her back to her feet, and turned to face the direction she'd come. "Stay behind me," he ordered quietly.

She scrambled to comply, nearly tripping over her own two feet as the Master stalked out of the shadows, through the door and into the hallway, calm and determined.

"Well, well," he greeted as he looked the Doctor up and down. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Neither are you," the Doctor answered low. "At least, not in that body."

The Master smiled with glee. "I know! I don't know how I did it but it's nice, isn't it? I'm rather fond of this body, I think."

"Yes, it is a very neat trick. But do you really think it was a good idea?"

"Why? Are you afraid I might kill the Doctor?" He shook his head dramatically. "Oh, now that would be tragic."

"What does he mean?" Rose asked shakily, leaning in closer to keep her voice low.

"Oh, will you shut up?" the Master sneered at her. She swallowed, and kept her eyes on him as he looked again to the Doctor. "Your humans and their senseless prattling. On and on with questions and feelings and talking. Don't you ever get tired of listening to them?"

"What do you want, Master?" the Doctor demanded.

"I could ask you the same thing." The Master stepped in closer. "What _are _you doing here? Come to save your human girlfriend? Now that _does _sound like you..."

"She doesn't need to be saved; I could pull her out at any time."

"So why don't you?"

The Doctor didn't answer.

"Why come yourself? Oh, don't tell me... You were just _dying _to see me."

Still, he said nothing. The Master's head lowered slightly as he came closer, crouching in on them. Rose stepped back instinctively, but the Doctor stood his ground.

"No, it's more than that, isn't it?" the Master asked, his dark voice tainted with curiosity. "You're not right. Same energy signature; you must be him but... you don't smell like him. Just a little bit wrong..."

The Doctor remained very still as the Master came closer, studying him like a work of art, or a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out. Pressing back against the wall, Rose watched silently as he circled him.

"You smell like a dog," the Master taunted. "Or maybe more like a kicked puppy, yipping for attention - what _are _you? Now that is fascinating..."

"Think about it, Master," the Doctor said low. "How can you exist here, in his mind? You haven't _happened_ yet."

"Lots of things here haven't happened yet."

"Yes, but they're locked behind closed doors. You're part of the substructure itself." The Doctor turned to look at him pointedly. "And you. Haven't. Happened."

The Master paused, studying him curiously. "And neither have you," he slowly realized.

"No," the Doctor answered. "But I'm not a hypostatic energy signature."

"A consciousness," the Master said with complete fascination. "You're an actual consciousness, but you're not him... You're different..." His smile grew with his excitement as he put the last of the pieces together, dancing backwards as he did. "A fully realized consciousness of a future regeneration - wow! You _do _have balls! I'm so impressed!"

"That's right, Master," the Doctor said low. "A fully realized consciousness and the only means you have of maintaining corporeal form."  
"Do you think?" the Master challenged with a brilliant smile.

"The Quiescenary is breaking down the information substructure of my mind. Past, present, future - they're all bleeding together. But that's not enough. That's not enough to affect you, to give you that body and that mind."

"No, of course not."

"You're using _my _mind. My proximity and the natural symbiotic relationship between my incarnations."

"Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it?"

Rose wished that the Master would sound just a little more concerned. Instead, he was nonchalant, almost mocking. She didn't understand just what the Doctor was threatening, but she understood that it wasn't being taken seriously.

"You're right, Doctor. I do need you. Your consciousness in such close proximity to his - well, yours - just throws open the floodgates of possibilities! Really, I can't describe what this has been like! One moment, I'm wandering through boring pathways I've travelled a hundred times before and the next? It's like a completely different mind overlaid on top of his, existing in the _same _dimensional space! There's _two _of you, right here and right now and neither of you are strong enough to actually _do _anything."

The Master stepped closer, eyes darkening as he lowered his voice. "You put on a good show, Doctor. But I know what's going on in _your _mind, too. I can feel both of you at the same time. And every breath he takes, every step closer to the edge, his consciousness is fading. And you... you're in no better shape than he is."

"And you, you're an idiot," the Doctor growled back. "There is a Quiescenary trolling through his brain and you would rather stand here having a _pissing _match with me than to do anything to stop it!"

"The Quiescenary is not my problem."

"Oh, but it is. Because if he dies, so do you."

"A bit of poetic justice, I think. You kill me, I kill you."

"But that's just it, Master." The Doctor stalked forward, eyes locked on his target, until they were nose to nose. "You think you know things - about him, about you - but you're wrong. You're not the Master, not really. You're just a filing program. Specific memories of specific times."

"You think I don't realize that?"

"I think you don't realize how fragile you've already become. Why do you think you're dressed like that?"

The Master looked down, evaluating his outfit with some curiosity.

"Bits and pieces of all your former lives - and it's not just your clothes. Or haven't you noticed that? Your face belongs to Harold Saxon and your hands belong to the man who saw me fall from the radio tower before my fourth regeneration. Your frame is from your third regeneration and your hair from your first. There's fragments of you strewn all over - all the rubbish that the Quiescenary didn't want and it's all compiled into a nice neat package, standing here and trying to pose a threat but do you know what?"

The Master straightened his posture as the Doctor leaned in closer, his voice so low, it was meant only for him. "I know the real Master," he whispered. "I know everything he's been and everything he will be. I know how he dies. I know his very last words."

"Oh really? And do you know hers?"

The scream from behind him made the Doctor spin on his heel, just in time to see the ground roll under Rose's feet, throwing her backwards into one of the doors. It opened behind her, then slammed shut again, trapping her inside as she still screamed and pounded.

"Doctor! Let me out! _Doctor_!"

"You're not fooling anyone, Doctor!" the Master yelled as the doors yawned open on either side of hallway, all the way into the darkness as far as the eye could see. The sudden onslaught of memories and emotions, raging through him all at once, was enough to make the Doctor's eyes widen in shock, to say nothing of the pain. Words and decisions and failures and regrets and laughter and tears and loneliness... On his knees now, the Doctor shut his eyes hard as he held his head, fighting back the confusion, the pain, the chaos in his mind.

"If you die here, you're dead," the Master threatened, looming over him. "Whatever you know about me, whatever you _think_ you know, it's useless information here."

"Doctor!"

He could still hear Rose screaming, still feel the memories flooding. Down the length of the hallway, the doors were still opening, overwhelming him. As the Master stepped closer, the Doctor opened his eyes to stare at his polished shoes, grabbing onto what memories he could as they passed through his mind with blinding speed. He fed from them. Anger and pain and loss and guilt. The emotions of almost a dozen lifetimes, all gathering in his chest, all building as the Master sneered down at him.

"I control these hallways, remember?" The Master smirked. "You were the one who put me here."

Very slowly, the Doctor drew his eyes up, teeth grit against the pain as he looked the Master straight in the eye. "I _am _the hallway!"

Before the Master could reply, the doors slammed shut, trapping the remains of the energy inside and cutting off the flow. Armed with the fury that was already burning in his chest, the Doctor had only to think of the darkness, and it rose up, out of the floor, snaking its way around the Master. It was long enough for him to realize what was happening, but not long enough for him to even think of getting away.

"Wait! Wait, I -"

"You're a figment of my imagination," the Doctor growled, dragging himself to his feet. "A mental construct, here to perform a very specific job and as of now..."

"Doctor!"

"I'm relieving you of that position."

The shadows dragged him into the floor, absorbing him into the infrastructure itself as he screamed. The Doctor stared for a long moment at the spot where he'd stood only moments before, then heaved a sigh of relief as he felt the chaos in his mind slowly settle. Finally, he turned to look up and down the still, silent hallway. There was no sign of Rose, but she was still here. Somewhere. He couldn't look for her. Not now. But she was the last thing he thought of as he let himself fall into blackness and slipped away from the cold, dark hallway.


	27. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

"Doctor?"

The Doctor opened his eyes slowly, and winced at the bright light. At least, it seemed bright. The inside of the Tardis, and a familiar face, leaning over him. He closed his eyes again.

"River..."

"Are you alright?"

He sat up slowly, cradling his head as he sorted through the confusion and the headache that was throbbing behind his eyes.

"I think so. But I'm definitely not going to be able to do that again."

"What about him?"

He opened his eyes and followed her gaze to the unconscious figure lying beside him. "He didn't see me."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, good. Nothing to worry about there, then."

"Rose?" Regaining his bearings, he turned to look at her. She, too, was quiet and still.

"She settled down almost as soon as you went inside," River said. "Seems your presence alone does a lot to reassure her."

He cast a sideways glance at River, but didn't answer.

"The Master?"

"Gone."

"And Rose? Where is she?"

"Somewhere else." He studied the man lying beside him, barely breathing, his hearts barely beating. "I don't know exactly where she is."

"But still inside."

"Yes."

"Good," River said quietly, offering a faint smile in Rose's direction. "Then there's still hope."

*X*X*X*

"Rose..."

She drew in a deep breath, the scent of sawdust and morning dew, and the faintest hint of lilac. It brought images to her mind instantly. Images that she didn't understand - the interior of a crumbling castle, a park with a narrow waterway, a dilapidated shack in a primitive village...

"Rose, wake up." The soft, female voice was unfamiliar but comforting. She could feel the woman's cool fingers on her forehead, pushing her hair back. "You're safe."

She opened her eyes slowly and found herself staring up at a white ceiling. There was a bed beneath her, soft and comfortable. Blinking a few times at the bright light, her eyes swept the room - a white bedroom with walls that held the same circular designs as the Tardis. And like the Tardis, the light seemed to come from the walls themselves. It was the Tardis; she was sure of it. But it was so white...

Slowly, Rose turned to look at the woman sitting beside her. She was tall, with long dark hair and a patient smile, dressed in a long white dress that made her look almost angelic. Rose was sure she'd never seen her before, but she was still somehow familiar. Rose trusted her before she even knew why.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Romanadvoratrelundar," she said softly, setting her hands delicately in her lap.

"Wow, that's a mouthful."

The woman smiled. "You can call me Romana. I'm a friend of the Doctor, and I'm here to help."

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

Look for the upcoming book, "Desperate Measures"


End file.
